Julius and Ethel Rosenberg Executed at Sing Sing, Cold War's Most Controversial Death Penalty Case

On June 19, 1953, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed by electric chair at Sing Sing prison, becoming the first American civilians executed for espionage during peacetime and the only Americans executed for Cold War spy activities. Their case remains the most controversial capital punishment in American history, with evidence suggesting Ethel was executed primarily to pressure Julius despite minimal involvement.

The Rosenbergs were arrested in 1950 after Ethel’s brother, David Greenglass, implicated them to reduce his own sentence for passing atomic secrets. The trial featured prosecutor Irving Saypol and his assistant Roy Cohn, who would later become Senator Joseph McCarthy’s chief counsel and a notorious figure in McCarthyism. Judge Irving Kaufman, in sentencing them to death, blamed the Rosenbergs for the Korean War, declaring their crime “worse than murder” and claiming they had caused “the Communist aggression in Korea, with the resultant casualties exceeding 50,000.”

Subsequent evidence revealed significant prosecutorial misconduct. Roy Cohn later admitted to improper ex parte communications with Judge Kaufman during the trial. David Greenglass recanted key testimony in 2001, admitting he lied about Ethel typing spy notes to protect his own wife. Declassified Soviet documents confirmed Julius ran a spy ring but suggested Ethel played little if any role in espionage. Many historians conclude Ethel was executed to pressure Julius into confessing and naming others—a confession he refused to provide.

The case became a cause celebre internationally, with protests worldwide. Pope Pius XII, Albert Einstein, and Jean-Paul Sartre appealed for clemency. President Eisenhower denied clemency, stating “By their act these two individuals have in fact betrayed the cause of freedom for which free men are fighting and dying at this very hour.” The execution, occurring just three years after McCarthy’s Wheeling speech, demonstrated how Cold War hysteria could override due process, foreshadowing abuses of the security state that would expand through COINTELPRO and beyond.