Must Read! Jewish Julius Rosenberg Spied for Moscow! _ Washington Post Article Declares
Doc Tavish
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/frompost/features/march97/rosenberg.htm
Julius Rosenberg Spied, Russian Says
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg arrive at federal court during their
espionage trial in New York. (AP)
By Michael Dobbs
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, March 16, 1997; A01
NEW YORK -- Half a century has passed since Alexander Feklisov held
his last clandestine meeting with Julius Rosenberg, but the retired
Soviet spy describes the occasion as if it were yesterday.
It was a hot, humid evening in August 1946. Feklisov, then a young
intelligence officer attached to the Soviet Consulate in New York, had
just been recalled to Moscow. The FBI was closing in on the networks
of Soviet agents set up by the Kremlin during World War II from the
ranks of committed American Communists. A telegram had arrived from
the KGB's Moscow Center to temporarily close down the New York
operation.
They met at a Hungarian restaurant on Manhattan's Upper West Side and
then, as night fell, went for a walk along Riverside Drive. They
watched the pleasure boats steaming up the Hudson River, lights
twinkling from their portholes. Feklisov remembers sitting on a bench
with Rosenberg and giving his American friend final instructions‘ on
how to resume contact with his Soviet handlers. He handed over $1,000
to cover possible emergencies.
At the end of the meeting, the two men stood and embraced be fore
going their separate ways. Feklisov went on to have a distinguished
career in foreign intelligence, including a posting to Washington as
KGB resident in the early 1960s. Rosenberg and his wife, Ethel, were
executed in 1953 after a sensational treason trial at which they were
accused of giving Soviet Russia the secret of the atom bomb.
Flash forward 50 years. Feklisov returns to New York in late August to
help clarify one of the most divisive and enduring controversies in
modern American history. Julius and Ethel Rosenberg went to their
deaths insisting that they were the victims of a government
conspiracy. Up until now, Moscow has steadfastly denied their guilt
and has refused to make public any of the intelligence files dealing
with the case. For generations of left-wing Americans, the innocence
of the Rosenbergs was an article of political faith.
Aged 82 and frail, Feklisov sat on a bench on Riverside Drive, near
where he said his final goodbye to Rosenberg. He said the time has
come to publicly reveal what he knows about the Rosenberg affair,
despite what he described as the objections of Russian intelligence
chiefs. A lifelong Communist, Feklisov wants the world to know that
Julius Rosenberg was a "hero" who helped the Soviet Union in its hour
of need in World War II and was later abandoned by his Soviet spy
masters.
<Picture: Agent at grave>
Former Russian KGB agent Alexander Feklisov visits the graves of
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg at a Long Island, N.Y., cemetery.
(Photo by Ed Wierzbowski)
"My morality does not allow me to keep silent," said Feklisov, saying
he is the only Soviet intelligence officer still alive with intimate
personal knowledge of the Rosenberg case. "Julius was a great
sympathizer of the Soviet Union. There were others who also believed
in communism, but were unwilling to fight. Julius was a true
revolutionary, who was willing to sacrifice himself for his beliefs."
Feklisov said he held a series of at least 50 meetings in New York
with Rosenberg from 1943 to 1946. He credited Rosenberg with helping
to organize an important industrial espionage ring for Moscow and
handing over top secret information on military electronics. At the
same time, however, he insisted that Ethel Rosenberg never had any
direct contact with Soviet intelligence, but conceded that she was
probably "aware" of her husband's activities.
Feklisov, who is known in the United States for his role as a
behind-the-scenes intermediary between the KGB and the White House
during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, said that Julius Rosenberg only
played a peripheral role in Soviet atomic espionage. According to
Feklisov, Rosenberg was "not directly involved" in stealing nuclear
secrets from the United States.
He described as absurd the claim of sentencing judge Irving R. Kaufman
that the Rosenbergs had "altered the course of human history" through
their treachery by putting the atomic bomb into the hands of the
Soviets.
Feklisov's assertions about the nature of the espionage role played by
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg are consistent with recently released top
secret American intercepts of Soviet intelligence cables between New
York and Moscow from the early 1940s. The so-called Venona intercepts
include repeated references to Julius Rosenberg's industrial espionage
but suggest only peripheral involvement in atomic spying.
The intercepts show that the Soviets had at least three key agents in
the U.S. atomic energy program, known as the Manhattan project, who
had no connection to the Rosenbergs. The most important was a nuclear
scientist, Klaus Fuchs, who was convicted of espionage and sentenced
to 14 years imprisonment by a British court in 1949.
Feklisov said the decision to tell his side of the Rosenberg story is
the result of years of personal agonizing and arguments with his
superiors in the foreign intelligence arm of the KGB. In 1993, he
began cooperating with a researcher at the U.S.A. Institute in Moscow,
Svetlana Chervonnaya, and an independent American filmmaker, Ed
Wierzbowski, who have investigated other Cold War spy cases. Last
August, Wierzbowski's company, Global American Television, arranged
for Feklisov to visit the United States to work on a documentary film
about the Rosenberg case which is scheduled to be aired on the
Discovery Channel next Sunday.
Symbols in Political Conflict
With the Cold War over and the Soviet Union consigned to history, it
is easy to forget the extraordinary emotions aroused by the case that
FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover dubbed "the crime of the century."
Executed by electric chair in Sing Sing at sundown on June 19, 1953,
the Rosenbergs rapidly became a potent political symbol. To the left,
they were martyrs of the McCarthyite hysteria then sweeping America.
To the right, they were leaders of a Communist fifth column that had
betrayed America from within.
The controversy over the government's handling of the case was
heightened by the severity of the punishment. The double death
sentence for husband and wife was unprecedented, at least in a federal
court, and meant that two young children had to grow up as orphans. It
provoked a storm of protest all around the world, with France
condemning the United States for barbarism and Pope Pius XII issuing a
personal appeal for clemency.
"There was a kind of droll aspect to McCarthyism initially, but after
the Rosenberg case everything got serious," recalled Walter Schneir, a
left-wing historian who has devoted much of his life to demonstrating
the Rosenbergs' innocence. "There was a time when everybody could tell
you exactly what they were doing when they heard about the execution
of the Rosenbergs. It was one of the moments like the assassination of
President Kennedy."
Along with the revelations contained in the Venona intercepts, which
were released to the public in July 1995, Feklisov's reminiscences
could resolve much of the remaining controversy surrounding the
Rosenberg affair. While historians will continue to argue about
certain details, there is now broad agreement between the rival camps
on central facts of the case.
"The debate is closed. It's all over," said Ronald Radosh, co-author
of a 1983 book, "The Rosenberg File: A Search for the Truth," which
maintained that the Rosenbergs were guilty of espionage. "There is no
longer any debate among serious people that Julius Rosenberg was a spy
for the Soviet Union. [At the same time] it is clear that the
Rosenbergs did not give the Soviets the ‘secret' of the bomb, and they
should not have been executed."
A long-running literary feud between Radosh and Schneir over the
details of the Rosenberg case seems unlikely to end any time soon.
Both men served as consultants for the Discovery Channel and plan to
publish competing assessments of Feklisov's revelations in this week's
editions of their respective ideological house organs, the New
Republic and the Nation. But the fact remains that the differences
between the two historians are now largely academic.
"I accept that Julius Rosenberg was involved in espionage," said
Schneir, contradicting one of the central points of his 1968 book,
"Invitation to an Inquest," which he wrote with his wife, Miriam.
The Rosenberg children, Michael and Robert Meeropol, who have
repeatedly maintained that their parents are innocent of espionage,
declined an invitation to meet with Feklisov last September during his
two-week visit in the United States. Michael Meeropol told The Post
that the family will reserve judgment about Feklisov's assertions
until after the screening of the television documentary.
Golden Age of KGB
Alexander Semyonovich Feklisov arrived in the United States in early
1941 under the pseudonym Alexander Fomin. It took him 10 months to
reach New York, traveling via Siberia, Japan, and San Francisco.
Officially, he was assigned to the Soviet Consulate in New York, but
this was merely a cover for his espionage work.
The period after Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941
was a golden era for Soviet foreign intelligence. Up until the western
allies opened up a second front in France in June 1944, Russia was
left to bear the brunt of defending the world from Nazi aggression.
There was no shortage of idealistic young Communists both in America
and Western Europe who were ready to assist the world's first
Socialist country in any way they could.
"It was not very difficult to find people to help us," recalled
Feklisov, whose specialty was techno-scientific espionage. "I had the
impression that if we put an advertisement in the paper with a request
for secret information, thousands of people would have replied. That
was the situation in those days."
A prime source of recruits for Soviet intelligence was the Young
Communist League, to which tens of thousands of college students
belonged. According to Morton Sobell, a college friend of Rosenberg,
half the members of his engineering class at City College of New York
in the late 1930s were Communists. The Rosenberg spy ring would be
made up almost entirely of Communists from City College.
"Remember, this was a time when there was 30 percent unemployment and
people were getting thrown onto the street every day," said Sobell,
who served 18 years in prison after being convicted in 1951 on
conspiracy charges.
"People like me were attracted to communism because it seemed to offer
a rational explanation for what was wrong with society. Capitalism
wasn't rational," said Sobell, who continues to deny any involvement
in espionage.
As Feklisov tells the story, Rosenberg was originally recruited in the
spring of 1942 by Semen Semenov, a KGB agent working out of the Soviet
trade organization Amtorg. At this point, Rosenberg was working as a
civilian inspector for the Signal Corps, which gave him access to
developments in the field of radio electronics. Feklisov says the fact
that both Rosenberg and Semenov were Jewish created an extra bond
between them.
"They found common ground very easily," said Feklisov, who worked as
Semenov's assistant, explaining that Rosenberg frequently talked about
Hitler's persecution of the Jews. "He wanted to do everything he could
to fight against Fascism."
Semenov returned to Moscow in 1943 after coming under tight
surveillance by U.S. counterintelligence. Several of his agents,
including Rosenberg, were assigned to Feklisov. There was a gap of a
few months as the Soviets waited for FBI surveillance to ease off.
Feklisov has vivid memories of his first meeting with Rosenberg in
late 1943.
It was a Sunday, a day when FBI surveillance was usually less
intensive. After checking to see that he was not being followed,
Feklisov went to Knickerbocker Village in lower Manhattan where the
Rosenbergs had an apartment. He called from downstairs over the
intercom, describing himself as a friend of Henry, Semenov's cover
name. The two men met on the staircase outside the Rosenberg apartment
and agreed to meet again in a couple of weeks at Childs' restaurant.
At first, obtaining information from field agents like Rosenberg was
cumbersome and laborious, Feklisov recalled. Rosenberg would have to
smuggle documents out of his workplace, meet with Feklisov, wait for
the documents to be copied, and then replace the documents without
anyone noticing that they were gone. This procedure required frequent
meetings, with a high risk of detection.
From mid-1944 on, Feklisov organized a different system of collecting
information. He distributed Leica cameras to his agents, and
instructed them in how to photograph documents. Using this procedure,
they were able to cut the agent-handler drop-off time to a few
seconds. "It would happen almost instantaneously," Feklisov recalled
of the "brush" contacts. "We would arrange to meet in a place like
Madison Square Garden or a cinema, and brush up against each other
very quickly." Longer meetings were reserved for strictly
"instructional" sessions.
Feklisov credits Rosenberg with persuading some of his old friends
from City College to work for the Soviets. Feklisov said neither he
nor any other Soviet agent ever met Ethel Rosenberg, whose forceful
personality was depicted by U.S. prosecutors as playing an important
role in motivating Julius's treachery.
A "Partisan' Complex?
According to Feklisov, the Rosenberg spy ring supplied the Kremlin
with a stream of intelligence about breakthroughs in the American
military electronics industry, including the development of radar
systems. He said the most valuable device that the Soviets received
from Rosenberg himself was a fully functioning proximity fuse, used to
bring down enemy aircraft without hitting them directly.
The proximity fuse story is a good illustration of Rosenberg's taste
for the melodramatic and his willingness to take great personal risks
for his Socialist beliefs. Development of the fuse was a closely
guarded military secret and its production tightly supervised.
Feklisov recalls that Rosenberg painstakingly assembled a duplicate
proximity fuse out of discarded spare parts and then smuggled the
device out of the Emerson Radio Factory in Manhattan in December 1944.
"I have a Christmas present for the Red Army," Rosenberg boasted to
Feklisov at their next meeting, at a Horn & Hardart automat.
Feklisov had called the meeting to give Rosenberg some Christmas
presents from the KGB, including an alligator handbag for Ethel and a
toy for their son Michael. He ended up having to lug a 20-pound box
containing one of America's most secret military devices back to the
Soviet Consulate. After they got over their initial surprise and
pleasure, his bosses were furious at Rosenberg for taking an
unnecessary risk. At their next meeting, Feklisov passed their
observations on to Julius.
"I calculated the risks very carefully," Rosenberg replied, according
to Feklisov. "What I was risking was only one-hundredth of what a Red
Army soldier risks when he attacks a tank."
Feklisov said he believes that Rosenberg displayed a kind of "Partisan
complex," in which he was constantly comparing his exploits to those
of the Soviet guerrilla fighters behind Nazi lines in World War II. It
was this mentality, said Feklisov, that accounts for the Rosenbergs'
refusal to cooperate in any way with the FBI after Julius's arrest in
June 1950. Had they told the FBI even a part of what they knew, the
would probably have escaped the electric chair, many scholars believe.
As he reflects on his relationship with Rosenberg, Feklisov looks back
ruefully at a series of mistakes by Soviet intelligence that he
believes led to his friend's arrest and execution. Most damaging of
all, he said, was a decision in early 1944 to recruit Rosenberg's
brother-in-law, David Greenglass, as a Soviet agent. At the time,
Greenglass was working as a mechanic at Los Alamos, N.M., the
headquarters of the American atomic bomb project.
According to Feklisov, Rosenberg had mentioned Greenglass as a
"devoted Communist" and possible recruit. Feklisov passed his
recommendation on to his superior, Leonid Kvasnikov, who was
responsible for gathering intelligence on the atomic bomb. Although
the Kremlin already had several sources at Los Alamos, including
Fuchs, it was always in the market for extra tidbits of information
about the bomb.
Feklisov insisted that the Soviets did not receive valuable
information from Greenglass, who occupied a low-level position at Los
Alamos and had only a rudimentary grasp of the work on the bomb. But
the Greenglass connection proved fateful to the Rosenbergs. When the
FBI began investigating an atomic spy ring in 1949, on the basis of
intercepted Soviet cables, Greenglass readily confessed. He told the
FBI that he had been recruited by Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.
Henry and Alex
Without access to the KGB files on the Rosenberg case, it is difficult
to corroborate the details of Feklisov's story. While the FBI has been
aware for some time that Feklisov worked for Soviet intelligence in
New York during World War II, the precise nature of his activities
during the war has remained a mystery to the federal government until
now.
Partial confirmation of Feklisov's relationship with Rosenberg is
contained in the FBI's own files. In prison, Julius Rosenberg shared a
cell with an FBI informer named Jerome Tartakow who succeeded in
gaining his confidence. According to FBI records, Rosenberg told
Tartakow that he had meetings with two Russians, whom he named as
Henry and Alex. With hindsight, it now seems likely that these two
names refer to Semenov, whose code name was Henry, and Feklisov, who
says he was known to Rosenberg by his real first name.
Feklisov is mentioned several times in the Venona intercepts under the
code name CALISTRAT as one of several Soviet agents working under
Kvasnikov's direction. The State Department was presumably aware of
this background when it approved a visa for Feklisov to work as a
counselor at the Soviet Embassy in Washington from 1962 to 1964. The
position was a cover for his real job as head of Soviet intelligence
in the United States.
During a 1989 seminar in Moscow on the Cuban missile crisis, Feklisov
identified himself publicly as the notorious "Mr. X," who said he
served as the back channel between the Kremlin and the White House.
His American contact was ABC News diplomatic correspondent John Scali,
who later served as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.
Feklisov's account of Ethel Rosenberg's minimal involvement in her
husband's work conforms with what is known from the Venona documents.
The most damaging reference to Ethel in the intercepts comes in a Nov.
27, 1944, KGB message from New York to Moscow, which mentions "ETHEL,
29 years old, married five years -- a FELLOWCOUNTRYMAN [code word for
Communist Party member] since 1938." The message said she "knows about
her husband's work," but was in "delicate health" and "does not work."
Schneir, the left-wing historian, says he was unable to catch Feklisov
out in a significant error of fact when he interviewed him in
September. He adds, however, that Feklisov's obvious familiarity with
the literature of the case and the Venona documents make it impossible
to reach a "definite conclusion" on the authenticity of his story.
"We could not endorse it, but we could not refute it. We had to admit
defeat," Schneir said. Chervonnaya, the Russian researcher, says that
Feklisov told her key details about the Rosenberg story before
publication of the Venona intercepts in July 1995. He mentioned
various code names that were later confirmed by Venona. Schneir's
literary rival, Radosh, is also impressed by the cumulative weight of
Feklisov's testimony.
"He is the genuine article," Radosh said. "I do not think that someone
could make up all those minute details."
FOR MORE INFORMATION: For the history of the U.S. project that broke
encoded Soviet messages and caught the Rosenbergs, as well as a press
release from the Rosenberg children who still attest to their parents'
innocence, click on the above symbol on the front page of The Post's
site at www.washingtonpost.com.
© Copyright 1997 The Washington Post Company
Related article from same source:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/frompost/features/march97/roseside.htm
Components of the Julius Rosenberg Wartime Industrial Espionage Ring
By Michael Dobbs
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, March 16, 1997; A01
According to retired KGB agent Alexander Feklisov, the Rosenberg spy
ring consisted of the following people:
Joel Barr
Studied electronic engineering at City College of New York with
Rosenberg, graduating in 1938. He was a member of the Young Communist
League. Feklisov says that Rosenberg recruited Barr as a Soviet
intelligence agent toward the end of 1942, at a time when he was
working for Western Electric in New York City. Feklisov says he met
with Barr on numerous occasions, and received valuable information
from him on infrared sights and missile electronics.
After the war, Barr moved to France, but disappeared in June 1950, at
a time when the FBI was closing in on other members of the Rosenberg
spy ring. He reappeared in public 40 years later in St. Petersburg,
Russia. Living under the pseudonym Joseph Berg, he had played a key
role in constructing a radar-controlled antiaircraft system for the
Soviet Union. Since 1991, he has been moving freely between the United
States and Russia. The FBI's files on the Rosenberg case contain
numerous references to Barr, but he was never charged with any crime.
He has repeatedly denied any involvement in Soviet espionage.
Alfred Sarant
A classmate of Joel Barr at CCNY. Worked at the Signal Corps
laboratory in Fort Monmouth, N.J. According to Feklisov, Sarant was
recruited to work for Soviet intelligence by Barr in 1943. Feklisov
says that Sarant worked as a subagent of Barr and did not have
independent contacts with Soviet intelligence. The FBI claimed that
Barr and Sarant photographed secret materials for the Soviets at an
apartment they shared at 65 Morton Street in Greenwich Village.
Sarant disappeared from the United States in July 1950, shortly after
being questioned by FBI agents about his connection with Rosenberg. He
reappeared in the Soviet Union under the pseudonym Philip Staros,
working with Barr on the development of the Soviet military
electronics industry. He died in Moscow in 1979 of a heart attack.
William Perl
A classmate of Barr and Morton Sobell at CCNY. Specialized in aircraft
engineering and became one of America's leading experts in jet
propulsion and supersonic flight. He worked for the National Advisory
Committee for Aeronautics, first in Washington and then in Cleveland.
According to Feklisov, Perl was recruited for Soviet intelligence at
Rosenberg's suggestion. Feklisov says that he traveled to Cleveland to
meet with Perl in late 1944, and to arrange a courier system to
receive his materials.
Questioned by FBI agents in August 1950, Perl denied knowing either
Rosenberg or Sobell. He was convicted of perjury and sentenced to a
five-year prison term in 1951, but repeatedly denied that he was
involved in a Soviet espionage ring. According to American intercepts
of Soviet intelligence traffic, Perl provided the Kremlin with
important information on aeronautics, for which he received a $500
bonus in 1944. Now deceased.
Morton Sobell
A CCNY classmate of Perl and Barr. Worked at the General Electric
laboratory at Schenectady, N.Y. According to Feklisov, Sobell was
recruited in 1944 by Rosenberg. Feklisov says he met with Sobell
frequently in in Manhattan in 1944 and 1945, and received important
information from him on military radar systems and future radio
engineering projects. Sobell, who now lives in San Francisco, denies
ever meeting with Feklisov or any other Soviet citizen during World
War II.
Sobell disappeared to Mexico in the summer of 1950, at a time when the
FBI was investigating the Rosenberg spy ring. Kidnapped by Mexican
agents and forcibly deported to the United States, he was a
co-defendant with Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. In 1951, he was
sentenced to a 30-year prison term, of which he served 18 years.
Released in 1980, he subsequently worked for a medical electronics
firm, and wrote a book, On Doing Time,‘ about his prison experiences
on Alcatraz island. He maintains his innocence.
David Greenglass
The brother of Ethel Rosenberg, Greenglass worked as a mechanic on the
U.S. atomic bomb project at Los Alamos, N.M. According to Feklisov,
Julius Rosenberg mentioned that Greenglass was working on the bomb
project in September 1944. In J January 1945, Greenglass went to New
York on leave. Feklisov says he arranged a meeting between Greenglass
and the Soviet field officer in charge of atomic espionage, Anatoly
Yatskov. Yatskov later told Feklisov that he had not received any
worthwhile information‘ from Greenglass.
Questioned by the FBI in June 1950, Greenglass confessed to Soviet
espionage, and named Julius Rosenberg as his recruiter. He changed his
testimony during the investigation to also implicate his sister,
Ethel, saying she had typed espionage material. Under a plea bargain
with federal prosecutors, he served a 15-year prison term for
espionage. His wife Ruth was permitted to go free. Greenglass lives in
upstate New York under an assumed name.
© Copyright 1997 The Washington Post Company
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Click:
http://webreview.com/news/natl/rosenberg/rosen2.html
to see some communications to Moscow that mention Rosenberg aka
"Antenna."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Click:
http://webreview.com/news/natl/rosenberg/index.html
In July 1995 the super-secretive National Security Agency (NSA) did
something out of character: it released 49 partially decoded
Rosenberg-era Soviet cables. The cables clearly show that at least
Julius actively spied for the Soviet Union, and some even discuss how
much he was paid. (Julius earned a $4,000 bonus from his Kremlin
bosses in 1944 -- big money in those days.)
Click:
http://webreview.com/news/natl/rosenberg/uncover.html
to see among other things:
In the summer of 1946, Arlington Hall cryptographer Meredith Gardner
was finally able to decode a handful of KGB code character sets. It
was far from the full code -- in fact, to this day the code has not
been fully decoded. But Gardner's fragments allowed parts of cables
moving between New York and Moscow to be read for the first time.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
The KGB was usually careful to refer to their US agents by code names,
which they changed frequently. However, in a November 27, 1944, cable,
the KGB chief in Washington had, in a moment of unforgivable
carelessness, referred to Ethel Rosenberg by her first name. In a memo
to Moscow about Julius -- whom he identified only as "Liberal" -- he
wrote: "Liberal's wife ... Surname that of her husband, first name
ETHEL, 29 years old. Married five years. Finished secondary school..."
Jack Garbuz
While the the Rosenbergs were executed for spying for the Soviet Union,
many non-Jewish spies like Walker and others have not been executed,
which is curious. It should also be noted that much of the US atomic
program which gave the US the advantage of having the first nuclear
weapons was the result of the work of Jewish physicists. If we are to
condemn a few Jewish spies should it not be in the context of the many
Jewish physicists who helped obtain it in the first place?