CURRENT ACTIVITY
 

NCRRC letter to committee members. December 2002.

taPlease help with our appeal for a Senate Judiciary 
  Committee hearing.ettargetargettarget

IMPORTANT EVENTS

INNOCENCE REVEALED
2001 Greenglass admits he committed perjury at the trial. Ethel Innocent!

2002 From CBS 60 Minutes: FBI aided in frame-up of innocent man.
1993 American Bar Association moot trial - Rosenbergs not guilty.
1997 Justice department letter reveals unjust application of law.
1995 In France, the fight to exonerate the Rosenbergs continues.
1997 Real spies for the USSR do not implicate Rosenbergs.
2001 Mumia Abu-Jamal case strikes blow against Capital Punishment.

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David Greenglass admits he committed perjury at the trial.
48 years later, the defense is vindicated. Prosecution case destroyed.
The brother of Ethel Rosenberg has admitted on a 60 Minutes II interview and in a new book (The Brother: The Untold Story of Atomic Spy David Greenglass and How He Sent His Sister, Ethel Rosenberg, to the Electric Chair  by Sam Roberts), that he lied under oath at the trial. It was his perjured testimony that provided the evidence which led to his sister's conviction and subsequent execution, along with her husband Julius. 
      Greenglass, who claims that he gave the Soviets information, was under indictment and was worried that if he and his wife Ruth did not cooperate, she would be indicted (because of her testimony as a government witness, Ruth, an admitted spy, was never indicted). He says Roy Cohn, an assistant prosecutor (and later aide to Senator Joseph McCarthy), encouraged him to lie about his sister Ethel. [more details]

New York Post, December 5, 2002.
From the article by Linda Stasi, TV critic. ". . . What I don't remember [about the Rosenberg case] . . . is the identity of the person who gave them up (they died in the electric chair). Or maybe I blocked it because it was so horrible. To refresh your memory, it was Ethel's own brother, David Greenglass."

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From CBS 60 Minutes: FBI aided in frame-up of innocent man.
60 Minutes, January 27, 2002
A Boston case in which the FBI knowingly participated in a conspiracy to send an innocent man to prison for 32 years has so incensed Dan Burton, chairman of the House Committee on Government Reform, that he has vowed to keep investigating the FBI for more such injustices. The case that enraged Burton involves Joseph Salvati, whom the FBI knowingly allowed to be wrongly convicted for murder to protect Mafia killers who were FBI informants. Burton, R-Ind., stated during the interview conducted by Mike Wallace: "I always thought J. Edgar Hoover walked on water when I was a kid. But when I found out Mr. Salvati had been put in prison for a crime he didn't commit and they knew it - the FBI for 32 years - and there was no remorse because of it, I said  'Something has to be done.' " 
       James Wilson, chief legal counsel for Burton's committee, received FBI documents showing that the FBI's knowledge of Salvati's innocence led up the chain of command, right to Hoover. "That's what the evidence shows. [Hoover] was kept informed of [Salvati's case] on an almost daily basis ", Burton said. "It's a shocking thing. J. Edgar Hoover knew Mr. Salvati was innocent. That was a miscarriage of justice. He knew it and his name should not be emblazoned on the FBI's headquarters. We ought to change the name of that building."
        Does all this sound familiar? Representative Burton has continued to pursue this issue, most recently holding hearings in February to consider tightening and strengthening laws against prosecutors who knowingly pursue false convictions. He is probably an excellent public official to contact about the Rosenberg Case. 
        If you are not actually in Representative Burton's district, it is better to contact him by mail, telephone or fax. The email processors of many members of congress filter out non-resident email. To contact him via mail, fax or telephone:

                          Congressman Dan Burton 
                          2185 Rayburn HOB
                          Washington, DC 20515 
                          202 225-2276
                          FAX: 202 225-0016

        To read more about contacting your government officials and for sample letters to send, go to TAKE ACTION (Burton's contact info is also listed in this section).

        To find out more about the Committee on Government Reform, you can go to:  http://www.house.gov/reform/

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ABA moot court trial of Rosenbergs yields unanimous verdict of not-guilty.
In August of 1993, members of the American Bar Association Section of Litigation re-enacted the 1951 trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.  A moot trial was conducted with expertise and meticulous concern for accuracy. The unanimous verdict of the twelve jurors was "Not Guilty." This "trial" and its dramatic outcome was widely reported by the media - for one day only.

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Justice department letter reveals unjust application of law.
The Justices Department's letter plus the NCRRC's response and appeal to President Clinton.
In the United States, courtroom trials are supposed to be meaningful, with a judge earning respect for fairness before jurors and spectators. Judges should sentence on the basis of the indictment and the trial record; not based on untried, untested and unchecked "out of court" information. However, this is exactly what happened in the sentencing of the Rosenbergs !
        This explains why around the world, concerned citizens protested  Judge Kaufman's death sentences, and his total absence of fairness. The world understood, but not the United States, which was caught up in McCarthysm; the paranoia and hysteria generated by the anti-communistic frenzy of the late 40's and the 50's. 
        One would expect the Justice Department of today to clearly recognize the unjust nature of Judge Kaufman's sentences. However, examination of the above-mentioned letter demonstrates that our government's thinking is still firmly entrenched in the cold war consciousness of those earlier times.

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In France, the fight to exonerate the Rosenbergs continues.
In 1995 the French Committee to Re-examine the Rosenberg Case was formed. This action was due to a lack of response by President Clinton to appeals signed by 100's of prominent American citizens concerned about the Rosenberg case. In France, the Rosenberg Case is seen as equivalent to their infamous Dreyfus Affair (1894-1906). Many streets throughout France have been re-named in tribute to the Rosenbergs, and, in a Paris suburb, a crèche was established and named The Ethel Rosenberg Nursery.

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Real spies for the USSR do not implicate Rosenbergs.
In 1997, Aldrich Ames, American CIA operative, was arrested, tried, declared "guilty," and imprisoned for passing highly sensitive information to the USSR. In cross-examination Ames did not implicate the Rosenbergs in any way.
        Also in 1997, the book "Bombshell: The Secret Story of America's Unknown Atomic Spy Conspiracy" by Joseph Albright and Marcia Kunstel, was published by Times Book Corp., NYC. This book documents the role of the brilliant American physicist Theodore Hall and other scientists who gave vital information about the atomic bomb to the Soviet Union. In this book, Theodore Hall makes no reference to any complicity by the Rosenbergs in his or any other espionage activities of which he was aware.

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Mumia Abu-Jamal case strikes blow against Capital Punishment.
Mumia Abu-Jamal has been on Pennsylvania's death row for close to 20 years and confined 23 hours daily in a tiny cell at State Correctional Institute Greene in Waynesburg, Pa. In 1982, Abu-Jamal was convicted of shooting officer Daniel Faulkner.  This allegedly occurred during the early-morning hours of December 9, 1981, after the officer pulled over Abu-Jamal's brother in a downtown traffic stop.
        Mumia has always maintained that he is innocent. In fact, in a 1999 affidavit, Arnold Beverly has confessed that he was hired by the mob to kill Faulkner because the officer had interfered with mob payoffs to police.
        In a recent ruling (Dec. 18, 2001) to have the case overthrown, Federal Judge William Yohn, Jr. stated that the confession by Beverly was not sufficient to have the conviction overturned. However, he did rule that the sentencing aspect of the original trial was invalid and that the death sentence no longer applies. He ordered the state of Pennsylvania to hold a new hearing within 180 days. If the state refuses in this time period, Judge Yohn said that he would impose a life sentence without parole on Mumia. This would be a gross injustice. We believe that Yohn's reasoning is incorrect and that Mumia deserves to have the entire case reviewed and overturned.
        While it appears that Yohn's decision, at minimum, would remove the execution threat from Mumia's case, we cannot take this for granted. The prosecution has stated that they will appeal Yohn's decision - THEY WANT TO KILL MUMIA. To find out more about this case you can go to http://www.freemumia.org