ROSENBERG SUMMER OF 1953

The Rosenberg summer of 1953 didn’t end well, unless getting the chair in Sing Sing is on your schedule.

They were the nice couple who were identified as spies funneling nuclear information to Russia.

And they got electrocuted in prison for their effort, aka ‘the chair.’

Famous for being the only two executed for espionage during the run of the Cold War, would they fare better today?

Call me naive but I’ve always had a fear of getting on the wrong side of people with an agenda they don’t share, especially if part of it was putting someone on the hot seat.

Or two people.

I’m a fan of Russia at times. This was one of them.

I met a nice Russian couple passing through town while I was photographing Portland. We talked. No problem, no recruiting, no secrets, just people interested in where we were.

Since we were in Portland, and I think of myself as informed about Portland, especially to travelers, I loaded them up on what to do, what to see, where to go.

No talk about anything worth an execution, but I thought of the Rosenberg summer of 1953 and how that worked.

When do you decide to do stuff that might end in the fryer? The Rosenberg case included kids who were orphaned after 1953. Is there a dad and mom out there who would take the other side against their kids, because that’s what happened.

Do the right thing, but don’t put your kids in play. Call that being a good parent.

Don’t sell your kids, abandon them, or fulfill some kind of ideological destiny that leaves them out.

But it was 1953 and things were different. How different?

WWII ended in 1945, Korean War started in 1950 and ended in ’53.

The baby boomer generation was heating up.

This is a quote that feels most telling of all:

Because the charge was conspiracy, the Rosenbergs’ conviction required no tangible evidence that they had stolen anything or given it to anybody. The key government witnesses – (Ethel’s brother and sister-in-law, David and Ruth Greenglass) – were charged with the same conspiracy and received more favorable treatment in return for testifying that the Rosenbergs were guilty.

My takeaway from this quote is the family ties between the two couples needed a better knot.

What Would Mueller Do

If The Man that is Robert Mueller had been on the job against the Rosenbergs, would they have been taken away by sparky?

I’m guessing a strong NO.

Since Mueller didn’t turn up the juice on everyone with a Russian interest, he’s perceived as fair and balanced, at least fair and balanced enough to allow the game to continue.

Instead of a ‘gotcha’ moment, he trusted in the process. He didn’t grandstand all the way through and make it more about him than the case he was working.

With that in mind, he probably would have been replaced in 1953 for a more aggressive investigator.

WWII led millions of people into the next phase of their lives, death. The Korean War was a meat grinder of 54,000 dead in three years.

Death wasn’t far away from the adults at the time.

Today we have the longest war in American history, but who’s counting? Death is further away from most of us in regard to war dead.

The Rosenberg summer of 1953 was closer to slaughter when they sat down.

Working with Russia comes with a certain hitch: From the B-29 to atomic secrets, the homegrown science of the Motherland needs a boost.

Without any unneeded finger pointing, working with modern Russia comes with a warning.

But is it a warning to heed?