Not only was he a traitor, he exaggerated his sister’s treason - perfectly willing to sacrifice her freedom and life to save his own pitiful ass. And he says he doesn’t care. The Pit has seen lots of vulgar words used to vilify people, but none of those words are adequate for this poor excuse for a human so I won’t even dignify him by using them - they’d be complimentary in his case.
If you haven’t read about this, see http://www.msnbc.com/news/667720.asp
I think I read in the NYTimes review of that new book that he claims he sold out his sister to save his wife . . .I always thought both he and Julius sold Ethel up the river, but since we can’t talk to Ethel, I guess we’ll never know.
Didn’t do Julius much good if he had sold out Ethel, since he was fried along with her.
In other current news, the Kefauver Commission is continuing its probe of organized crime, the Soviets have just launched a man-made satellite called Sputnik, and it looks like Britain and France may go to war after Nasser’s government recently nationalized the Suez Canal.
Well, he apparently was trying to keep his wife out of prison. I find it hard to get worked up over it–I’m not sure I wouldn’t have done the same thing in his shoes. And as gobear eloquently points out, it’s been 50 years…
A place in Hell, maybe, but not a very special place, I’d say.
In the now-decoded Venona documents, it appears the Ethel was as guilty of espionage as the rest of them, so i don’t know who sold whom out. All I know is that some of them got away. There were other spies on the A- and H-bomb projects that were never identified.
Is there a statute of limitations for treason? Why can’t they get this asshole?
Wait, is that the Roy Cohn? The asshole lawyer (he was such a shit that even other lawyers hated him) who delighted in persecuting gays all the while being a closet homosexual, who later died of AIDS, and was a character in Angels in America (I think that was the play)? That Roy Cohn? If so, then I’m surprised that the only thing this guy did was lie under oath. Its a wonder that they didn’t fabricate more evidence.
Words (almost) fail me.
“Well, after all, if I’d been a spy, I would have done the same thing - or worse! I would probably have dragged in the names of lots of innocent people, so really, as you can see he wasn’t nearly as bad as I would have been…”
Insert despairing, depressed smiley face here.
It’s been fifty years?
“Sure, I ran over johnson in my car, and put him in a wheelchair, but God it was nearly five years ago - is he still squawking about it? Tell him to get a life…”
Redboss
Mind you, I am one of the few people who still gets worked up about the murderous designs that bitch Mary Queen of Scots had on ELIZABETH, the greatest queen England has ever had, so maybe I’m not exactly normal.
But jeez!
And yes it was that Roy Cohn. An evil bastard if ever there was one. Lawyer, apparently.
Since there is solid evidence from other sources (the aforementioned Venona documents among them) that the Rosenbergs were involved in espionage on behalf of the Soviet Union, it’s difficult to view Greenglass’ testimony against them merely as some kind of frameup. It’s debatable whether Ethel’s role as an accomplice merited the electric chair, but let’s remember that she went to her death as a defiant Communist refusing to give any information to the authorities (see Louis Nizer’s The Implosion Conspiracy), ensuring that her children would grow up without either parent. That alone might merit a special place in hell for her.
Greenglass, in the new book, tries to justify his spy activities on the grounds that giving the Soviets bomb secrets actually promoted world peace, by establishing the Mutual Assured Destruction stand-off between the U.S. and Soviet Union. If you want proof that he’s a sleazebag, look no further.
The link posted in the OP again repeats the tired argument that there were anti-Semitic overtones to the prosecution of the Rosenbergs. We seem to be again forgetting that both the prosecutor and judge in the Rosenberg case were Jewish.
Are we gonna take the words of a convicted(and admitted) spy at face value? He’s already admitted to be lying-ass dog. Do you think this could be a lie as well?
Wow, you’ve captured it exactly! That’s exactly what Greenglass did, and obviously what I would do in the same circumstances! insert rolleyes smiley here.
Or, just maybe, he told a few lies about someone he knew was guilty in the hopes of keeping his wife out of prison. Only one person, not lots of innocent people.
His attitude is what pisses me off. The man has no regrets. “Yes, I sold my sister up the river. So what? She didn’t try to save herself because she was stupid.”
Traitors are nothing new. Cowards are nothing new. But at least many of them have the grace to feel bad about it afterward. He’s made a good match, because his wife is concerned only that she is still alive. Fortunately that’s a temporary situation for both of them
There are certain qualities that define us as human. Feeling is one of them. This man is as feeling and compasionate as a stone. And as human, IMHO