The Controversy Of The Rosenberg Trial During The Mccarthy Era

On August 6, 1945, the first of two atomic bombs was dropped on Japan, sparking the start of what is now known as the Cold War. Two large military powers, the Soviet communists and the United States of America, pitted their wits and defense against each other, using any means necessary to find cracks in the others’ defenses. Three days later, the second atom bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, which shook the world with its deafening death toll. The world immediately took up arms in the following years, sparking some of the most controversial years in history. Suspicion turned brothers against sisters, neighbors against neighbors, and caused many lives to be ruined. These years are often referred to as the “McCarthy era”, named after a U.S. Senator from Wisconsin who blamed many of his colleagues of Communist subversion. In many cases, defendants were pitted against their own friends, whose only evidence were their words. Cultural and racial bias ran rampant, and often those accused of a crime against the country, such as espionage or conspiracy of espionage, were not given fair trials. In one such case, a husband

The reason that the Rosenberg trial comes to light in history is because of the unusual punishments doled out to the respective parties involved. Every person involved that confessed was given a prison sentence, but when it came to the Rosenbergs, both Ethel and Julius refused to confess. Both pleaded the fifth as a means to stay silent. Most of the evidence presented against them were the words of Gold, Bentley, and Greenglass. Some historians argue that Gold, Bentley, and Greenglass confessed simply to make their prison sentences shorter. Still others believe that Ethel and Julius were unjustly executed, simply because they refused to confess. To this day, the Rosenbergs are the only people in history to be executed in the United States for