EVELYN COX, REBUTTAL WITNESS FOR THE PROSECUTION
(exerpts and summary)

Evelyn Cox was a part-time maid employed by the Rosenbergs in 1944 and 1945.

SAYPOL: Mrs. Cox, will you sit right back and make yourself easy, like you do in a rocking chair. You and I had some talk about the Rosenbergs, you remember? 

EVELYN COX: Yes, Mr. Saypol. 

(Cox was asked about a console table in the Rosenbergs' house that the government alleged was a gift of the Soviets used for epionage purposes. The Rosenbergs had testified that it was purchased at Macy's.)

EVELYN COX: I asked [Mrs. Rosenberg] where it came from. It was such a pretty table and she said that a friend of her husband gave it to him as a gift. Then she added that he hadn't seen him for a long time and it was a sort of a wedding present. That is all the talk we ever had about the table. 

SAYPOL: Did she ever say to you that she bought it in Macy's? 

EVELYN COX: No. 

SAYPOL: Did she ever say to you that her husband bought it and paid $21 for it in Macy's? 

EVELYN COX: No, she said it was a gift to her husband from a friend. After a while this table was moved from the wall against which it always stood, into a closet. From that time on, even though it was a new and the best piece in the apartment, it remained in the closet. 

SAYPOL: That is the closet which is right next to the bathroom? 

EVELYN COX: To the bathroom. 

SAYPOL: So that if one opened the door to the closet, the electric light from the bathroom would shine into the closet? 

EVELYN COX: Yes, sir. 

SAYPOL: Did you ever see the table outside again in the living room-- 

EVELYN COX: No.There was no other furniture in the closet. 
 

Cross-examination 

E. H. BLOCH: Did there come a time while you were working for the Rosenbergs when one of the tables was disposed of or sold by Mrs. Rosenberg? 

EVELYN COX: You mean the console? That is the only table, and it wasn't disposed of because it was in the closet. Mrs. Rosenberg put it in the closet.

E. H. BLOCH: When you left in 1943 was that console table that you just described still in the closet? 

EVELYN COX: Yes, it was in the closet. It came in 1945, she got it in I945. It had stood against a wall for about two or three months before being placed in the closet. 

E. H. BLOCH: Now while it was outside did you notice whether it was used for eating purposes? 

EVELYN COX: It was never used for any purposes, so far as I know, never. 

E. H. BLOCH: You mean it was just a decorative-- 

EVELYN COX: It was an ornament. 

E. H. BLOCH: Could that console table have been opened up so that it could be used for eating purposes? 

EVELYN COX: Well, it had a leaf. It had a leaf, you know, that used to stay against the wall that it could have been used but don't I know that they ever used it. I never saw them using it.... 

E.H. BLOCH: I would just like to ask you one question. When you had a conversation with Mrs. Rosenberg about where the table came from--do you remember you testified about that? Did she or did she not say that this was a gift from her husband? 

EVELYN COX: She said it was a gift to her husband from a friend who hadn't seen him for years. 

E. H. BLOCH: Now is it your testimony, Mrs. Cox, that while you were working there during the years 1944 and 1945, that this console table that you have described was the only console table that was delivered or was new furniture in the Rosenberg home? 

EVELYN COX: Yes. 

E. H. BLOCH: May I ask you, Mrs. Cox, in the two years in which you worked for Mrs. Rosenberg did you find Mrs. Rosenberg to be an honest woman? 

EVELYN COX: Very.