Wednesday, December 12, 2001
The revelation that David Greenglass lied under oath to protect himself and his wife from spying charges and sent his sister, Ethel Rosenberg, to the electric chair is chilling in itself -- considering that Mrs. Rosenberg and her husband, Julius, were the only Americans ever convicted of Cold War espionage in the United States in a case that threw fuel on the fire fanned by Sen. Joseph McCarthy. But Greenglass, now at 79, is totally unrepentant for his perjury.
Should he meet the Rosenbergs' sons, his own nephews, he would tell them he was "sorry your parents are dead" but would not apologize for his role in their execution. Such a cold and calculating individual would ice the streets of hell.
Unmerited slumber: Greenglass, who lives in New York under an assumed name and appeared on a recent television program in disguise, reports that he sleeps very well. Would he sleep so well if his neighbors knew who he really was and what he had done.
He admitted to giving atomic secrets to Moscow and implicating his sister to protect himself and his own wife. When the Rosenbergs came to trial, Greenglass said Roy Cohn, an assistant prosecutor and later aide to McCarthy, told him to lie. At the trial, he testified that his sister had intimate knowledge of the plot and even typed Greenglass' notes to his Soviet contacts.
He was sentenced to only 15 years and was released from prison in 1960. The Rosenbergs went to their deaths in 1953.
Of course, says Greenglass now, his sister's refusal to confess espionage and avoid execution resulted from her "stupidity." His conclusion: not that the lies he told in court and before Congress were responsible for his sister's punishment, but rather that it was her own fault.
None of this grim history might have been revealed had New York Times editor Sam Roberts not felt compelled to learn the true story and after three days of interviews with Greenglass wrote & quot;The Brother: The Untold Story of Atomic Spy David Greenglass and How He Sent His Sister Ethel Rosenberg to the Electric Chair. & quot;
Greenglass told Roberts that all he really wants is to be forgotten. Thanks to Roberts' tenacity, this immoral excuse for a human being never will be.