July 6, 2025
INDEPENDENCE BETRAYED: The Rosenberg Files (Part 2) - "The Electric Chair"
"THE ELECTRIC CHAIR: America's Most Controversial Execution" Conclusion of the Rosenberg weekend special: From death row protests to the botched execution that shocked the world. Reid Carter examines the evidence that emerged decades later, the questions that remain unanswered, and what this Cold War case teaches us about justice in times of fear. Tomorrow: Back to modern trials with Bryan Kohberger.
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WEBVTT
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Kalaroga Shark Media. Good morning, and welcome back to Celebrity Trials.
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I'm Read Carter, and this is the conclusion of our
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Independence Day weekend special on the Rosenberg Case. Yesterday we
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left Julius and Ethel Rosenberg on death row, sentenced to
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die for allegedly stealing atomic secrets for the Soviet Union. Today,
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we're going to follow them through two years of appeals,
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international protests, and ultimately to their deaths in the electric
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chair at Sing Sing Prison. But this isn't just the
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story of an execution. This is the story of how
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America struggled with its own values in the face of
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Cold War terror, and how one couple's fate became a
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worldwide symbol of either justice served or justice perverted. For
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two years, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg sat in separate cells
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at Sing Sing, seeing each other only during brief visits,
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and communicated through letters that would later be published as
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the Rosenberg Letters. These letters revealed a couple maintaining their
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innocence while grappling with the possibility that they would die
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for crimes they insisted they didn't commit. Their case became
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an international cause. Celebre protesters marched in Paris, London and Rome.
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Pope Pious the Twelfth appealed for clemency. Albert Einstein wrote
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letters supporting them. Jean Paul Sartre called their trial a
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legal lynching, but in America, public opinion was largely against them.
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This was the height of the Cold War, the Korean
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War was raging, and Senator Joseph McCarthy was hunting for
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Communists in every corner of American society. The Rosenbergs, whether
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guilty or innocent, had become symbols of the enemy. Within
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the Rosenberg's lawyers filed appeal after appeal, challenging everything from
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the composition of the jury to the severity of the sentences.
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They argued that the death penalty was disproportionate for a
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crime that hadn't even been charged as treason, that the
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evidence was largely circumstantial, and that Ethel in particular, was
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being executed simply for being Julius's wife. But every appeal
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was denied. The Supreme Court refused to hear the case.
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President Eisenhower denied clemency requests, writing I can only say
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that by immeasurably increasing the chances of atomic war, the
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Rosenbergs may have condemned to death tens of millions of
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innocent people all over the world. As their execution date approached,
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the Rosenbergs became increasingly isolated. Their own lawyer, Emmanuel Block,
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suffered a heart attack from the stress of the case.
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Protesters gathered outside the White House and Singh Singh Prison,
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but President Eisenhower remained unmoved. The execution was originally scheduled
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for June eighteenth, nineteen fifty three, but when lawyers pointed
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out that this would fall on the Jewish Sabbath, it
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was moved to June nineteenth. It was a small mercy
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in an otherwise merciless process. On their final day, Julius
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and Ethel were offered one last chance to save their lives,
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confess to their crimes, and provide information about their accomplices.
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Both refused. At eight o four pm on June nineteenth,
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nineteen fifty three, Julius Rosenberg was led into the execution
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chamber at Sing sing He was strapped into the electric chair,
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and at eight o six pm he was pronounced dead.
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Ethel followed eight minutes later, but her execution was botched.
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The first jolt of electricity failed to kill her, and
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she had to be electrocuted again. She was pronounced dead
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at eight sixteen pm. The Rosenbergs left behind two young sons,
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ages six and ten, who were eventually adopted by family
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friends and grew up under assumed names. But death did
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not the Rosenberg controversy. It intensified it. In the decades
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that followed, evidence emerged that complicated the simple narrative of
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guilt or innocence that had dominated their trial. In nineteen
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ninety five, the US government released the Venona Decrypts, intercepted
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Soviet communications from the nineteen forties that had been classified
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for fifty years. These documents seemed to confirm that Julius
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Rosenberg had indeed been a Soviet spy, operating under the
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code name Antenna and later Liberal, but the same documents
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raised serious questions about Ethel's involvement. The Soviets referred to
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her only as Julius's wife, and there was no evidence
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she had an active role in espionage beyond possibly typing documents,
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hardly a crime worthy of death. In two thousand and eight,
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Morton Sobel, the Rosenberg's co defendant, who had spent eighteen
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years in prison, finally admitted that both he and Julius
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had been Soviet spies, but he maintained that Ethel was
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essentially innocent, executed only because prosecutors hoped her death sentence
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would pressure Julius to confess. So what are we to
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make of the Rosenberg case seventy two years later? Several
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things I think. First, Julius Rosenberg was almost certainly guilty
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of espionage. The evidence from multiple sources now confirms that
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he was recruiting and running a spy network for the
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Soviet Union. Second, Ethel Rosenberg's guilt is far less clear.
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She may have been aware of her husband's activities, but
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there's little evidence she was an active participant. She appears
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to have been executed largely because she was Julius's wife
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and because prosecutors hoped her death sentence would break him. Third,
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the death penalty was almost certainly excessive. Even if both
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Rosenbergs were guilty, they gave information to an ally during wartime,
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not an enemy. The Soviet Union was America's partner in
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defeating Nazi Germany when the alleged crimes occurred. Fourth, the
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case shows how fear can corrupt justice. The Rosenbergs were
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tried at the height of Cold War hysteria, when being
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accused of communism was almost equivalent to being convicted of treason.
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They received the death penalty not just for what they
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allegedly did, but for what they represented to a frightened nation.
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More in a moment, the Rosenberg case offers sobering lessons
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for our own time. It shows how quickly fear can
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override justice, how easily the government can overreach in times
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of national crisis, and how the justice system can be
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weaponized against unpopular defendants. It also shows the importance of
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questioning official narratives even decades later. The truth about the
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Rosenbergs didn't emerge until fifty years after their execution, when
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classified documents were finally released. Most importantly, it reminds us
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that the ultimate test of any justice system isn't how
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it treats popular defendants or clear cut cases. It's how
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it treats the unpopular, the feared, and the despised. The
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Rosenbergs may have been guilty of espionage, but they deserved
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a fair trial based on evidence, not fear. That concludes
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our Independence Day weekend special on the Rosenberg Case. Tomorrow
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we return to modern Celebrity Trials with the next installment
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in our Brian Koberger series, The Crime, We'll take you
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inside that November night in Moscow, Idaho, when four college
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students' lives were brutally ended by a criminology student who
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thought he could commit the perfect murder. This is Celebrity Trials,
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your daily source for the courtroom dramas that shape our culture.
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Make sure you're subscribed, because the stories keep coming and
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they keep getting more shocking. I'm reed, Carter. The Rosenberghs
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died seventy two years ago, but the questions their case
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raised about justice, fear, and the price of betrayal are
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as relevant today as they were in nineteen fifty three.
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See you Tomorrow,
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