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ATTORNEYS
Emanuel Bloch: 
Emanuel "Manny" Bloch, along with his father Alexander, was the defense attorney for the Rosenbergs. Though not really a criminal trial lawyer, he was known in the legal community as a defender of leftist sympathizers. With the passage of the McCarran Act, Manny found work and  defended the leader of the Communist party of Pittsburgh and the Trenton Six.
        During the course of the trial and the many appeals, Bloch grew very close to the Rosenbergs and their children. The relationship went further than attorney and client. Bloch was totally involved. He cast aside his other caseload to focus entirely upon the Rosenbergs. His efforts in the final frantic days to spare his clients
from execution were nothing short of heroic. Bloch delivered the eulogy at the Rosenberg  funeral and served as guardian for their two sons.
        The Rosenberg case would be the culmination of Bloch's legal career. It was his most infamous as well as his last case. In early 1954 Bloch was found dead in his apartment, dead of a heart attack at age 52.
Another victim of the Rosenberg case.

Fyke Farmer:

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Marshall Perlin: [From his New York Times obituary, January 4, 1999.]
Mr. Perlin was born in Manhattan and graduated from Rutgers University. He finished Columbia Law School in 1942, but his degree was deferred until 1947, while he served in World War II
        He was a first lieutenant and navigator in the Army Air Force, flying bombing  missions in the Pacific. He earned the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Air Medal with two oak leaf clusters and two battle stars. 
      He practiced in Federal Court in several states, and tried a case that was admitted to the United States Supreme Court in 1955. Although he had a solo practice much of the tome, he at one time was a partner of Arthur Kinoy, a retired professor of constitutional law at Rutgers. 
        Mr. Perlin did his most famous work representing the sons of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg and Morton Sobell, the Rosenbergs' 
co-defendant.
        Mr. Perlin argued court motions that resulted in the  public release of hundreds of thousands of pages of documents on the Rosenberg case and help change the way the FBI handled documents.
        Mr. Perlin pursued Mr. Sobell's appeals of his original 30 year sentence and served as counsel to the Rosenbergs' children, Robert and Michael Meeropol. . . .In an effort to have the case reopened and show that the couple were framed, he began in the mid-1970's to challenge the FBI, the Justice Department, the CIA and other offices to release classified documents. [Note: was done using the Freedom of Information Act.] 
      The collection of these documents, now known as the Perlin Papers, is stored at Columbia Law School.
       Marshall Perlin was 79 when he died and lived on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.

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JUDGE
Irving R. Kaufman: Irving R. Kaufman was born in New York City in 1910. He graduated from Fordham University at the age of 18 and then attended Fordham Law School. Although a Jew, he earned the nickname "Pope Kaufman" from his fellow students for his excellence in the school's required Christian courses. Kaufman finished Law School at 20, a year before he was eligible to take the Bar exam.
          He then worked for a private firm, and, as a government attorney in the mid-1930s, prosecuted several notorious New York City cases and became known as the "boy prosecutor." He was named to the federal bench for the Southern District of New York in 1949.
          Judge Irving R. Kaufman was just 40 years old when he presided over the Rosenberg case. In March 1951 Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were tried in his court and found guilty of conspiring to commit espionage. Judge Kaufman sentenced both Rosenbergs to death, the first such peacetime sentences in U.S. history. After a series of appeals, the Rosenbergs were executed.
         Kaufman's trial rulings, harsh sentences, and post trial interference in the Rosenbergs-Sobell case earned him the enmity of critics including Justice Frankfurter, and probably delayed his elevation to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals by several years. In 1961, he was finally promoted to the Court of Appeals, where he would finish his judicial career. He died in 1982.

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OTHER PLAYERS
Klaus Fuchs: Klaus Fuchs was born in Germany into a Quaker family, and lived through the rise of Nazism. His anti-Nazi politics evolved into communism. He emigrated to England in 1933, and received his professional education there. He was recruited into the `Tube Alloys' (nuclear) project in 1941, and became a British citizen in 1942. He was, according to his own statements, passing information to the USSR as early as 1941. He was sent to the US in late 1943, part of the group of British scientists who joined the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos. He was present at the Trinity test (first a bomb), and had been involved in important theoretical work - from gaseous diffusion to bomb design.
          A year after the war (1946) Fuchs returned to England to become head of the Theoretical Physics Division at the new British atomic energy center at Harwell. In 1949, the FBI passed on to British Intelligence some evidence that a British scientist had provided information to the Soviets from Los Alamos. Fuchs came under suspicion because of his prewar communist background. Fuchs was interrogated by British security officials, culminating in January, 1950, in a confession. He was arrested February 2, tried on March 2, and sentenced to 14 years in prison. (The FBI got permission to interview Fuchs in prison in May of 1950.) His crime was not treason, because the USSR was not an enemy.  Released in June, 1959, he emigrated to Dresden, East Germany, where he was employed as a physicist until his death in 1988. 

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J. Edgar Hoover:  J. (John) Edgar Hoover was Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), lawyer, criminologist. Born January 1, 1895, in Washington, D.C. Hoover studied law at George Washington University, while working as a clerk at the Library of Congress. 
         After being admitted to the District of Columbia bar in 1917, he became special assistant to Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer and led the controversial "Palmer Raids" against alleged seditionists. In 1924, Hoover advanced from assistant to director of the Bureau of 
Investigation (which became the FBI in 1935). He remained director under every president from Calvin Coolidge to Richard Nixon. 
        Hoover emphasized modern technological investigative techniques, improved training, and obtained increased funding from Congress. During the 1930s, FBI exploits against notorious gangsters made him a national hero. He never missed a chance to use the media to enhance the image of the FBI.
         It was the aftermath of the Union Street Massacre that the FBI created physical evidence and had their agents and other witnesses commit perjury. This precedence was to continue up until the Rosenbergs and beyond. The ends did justify the means and conviction was more important than justice.
          In the 1940s and 1950s Hoover became well known for his anti-Communist and anti-subversive views and activities. Hoover used the weight of his office and the media to pursue the case against the Rosenbergs. After all the FBI's duty to God and Country was to destroy any threat to America. At the same time, he consciously failed to restrict Mafia activity, which was conducted with minimal interference from the FBI. 
        In the 1960s Hoover became a problematic political figure due to his lack of sympathy for the civil rights movement and the Kennedy administration. His reputation declined in later years following revelations concerning his vendettas against liberal activists (notably Martin Luther
King Jr.) and widespread illegal FBI activities. 
        Hoover published a number of books detailing his work with the FBI. His writings include Persons in Hiding (1938), Masters of Deceit (1958), A Study of Communism (1962), and Crime in the United States (1965). Hoover died on May 2, 1972, ending his 48 year tenure as the director of the FBI. He was 77 years old.

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Harry Truman: Harry Truman was the Thirty-third president of the United States. Born May 8, 1884 in Lamar, Missouri. He went to high school in Independence, Missouri. From 1900 until 1905 he held
various small business positions. During the next 12 years farmed on his parents' land near Independence. In 1917, soon after the United States entered World War I, he enlisted in the artillery, serving in France and achieving the rank of captain. On returning from the war, he joined a friend in opening a haberdashery. The haberdashery went bankrupt, but he adhered to hard work, accepting misfortunes serenely. In 1919 he married Bess Wallace; and together they had one child, Margaret.
           A staunch Democrat and admirer of Woodrow Wilson, Truman entered politics in 1922 by being elected county judge in 1922 and served from 1922 to 1924. He was presiding judge from 1926 to 1934, giving close attention to problems of county administration. He was elected Senator in 1934, reelected in 1940. When Roosevelt was nominated for a fourth term in June 1944, the President bowed to the wishes of influential state and city leaders and named Truman for vice president.
        After Truman had served only 82 days as vice president, Roosevelt died suddenly on April 12, 1945. Truman quickly took command and  continued Roosevelt's policies. He authorized the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945 (and on Nagasaki a week later), and approved the surrender of the Japanese government on Allied terms in a treaty signed on the battleship Missouri on September 2, 194
        In 1947 Truman instituted a loyalty program for federal employees; the Red scare was starting and would soon be a feature of American life. Congress carried the concept of "loyalty" beyond what the President envisioned when it enacted the the McCarran Internal Security Act in 1950. This was vetoed by Truman but overridden by Congress by an 83 percent  vote.
         On January 9, 1953 each of the Rosenbergs submitted clemency petitions to President Truman. Thousands though out the world wrote or cabled the White House urging that the Rosenberg's lives be spared. Harry S. Truman vacated the Presidency on January 20, 1953, without acting on the Rosenberg's clemency appeals. Like a 20th century Pontius Piliot, he "washed his hands" of the whole affair.
       Truman died on December 26, 1972 and was buried in the courtyard of the Truman Library.

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Dwight Eisenhower: Dwight David Eisenhower was born in 1890 in Denison, Texas. After graduating from West Point in 1915, he undertook further military studies and became a fast-rising staff officer in
Washington, D.C. During World War II he and was assigned to command the allied forces during their invasions of North Africa, Sicily, and Italy (1942--43). 
           His talent for both strategic planning and staff coordination led him (December 1943) to be named supreme commander of the allied invasion of Normandy and he directed the campaign from D-Day (June 6, 1944) to the surrender of Germany (May 1945). After  commanding the U.S. occupation forces in Germany, he returned to the U.S.A. to serve as army chief of staff (1946--48) before retiring from active duty. He served as president of Columbia University (1948--50) and head of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (1951--52) before the Republicans drafted him as their presidential candidate in 1952; under the motto "I like Ike," he won by a landslide over Adlai Stevenson and become the thirty-fourth U.S. president.
            He twice rejected clemency pleas for the Rosenbergs: February 11 and June 19 1953. He thought, or was led to believe that the Supreme Court reviewed the case which they never did. Advisors from the Justice Department convinced Eisenhower that they had secret evidence against Ethel. So his initial qualms about executing a woman and a mother of two young children were overcome. He also found no trouble ignoring the world wide protest against the executions of the Rosenbergs. It is no wonder that he did little to restrain the Cold War machinations of his Secretary of State John Foster Dulles or the McCarthy red-scare.
 

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The Rosenbergs' Sons: Michael and Robert, the sons of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, were just 7 and 3 years old when their parents were arrested for espionage. 
          During the trial and the various appeals of their parents the boys had no home of their own. When Ethel Rosenberg was arrested the children were sent to live with Tessie Greenglass, Ethel's mother. Tessie Greenglass was unable to take care of the boys, and after staying with her for three months they were moved to the Hebrew Children's Home. Sophie Rosenberg, Julius' mother removed Michael and Robert from the shelter after they had been there for several months. She decided to take care of the boys herself. During this time Michael and Robert were allowed to visit their parents in Sing Sing prison. After about one year with their paternal grandmother the boys were forced to relocate once again, this time moving in with the Bach family, friends of the Rosenbergs, who lived in New Jersey. 
           On June 14, 1953 Michael and Robert traveled to Washington, D.C. to appeal for their parents lives to be spared. The Rosenbergs' will named their attorney, Manny Bloch, as guardian of the boys. Bloch placed the Rosenberg's children with Abel and Anne Meeropol, and in 1957 the couple legally adopted the boys. (Abel Meeropol, incidentally, wrote the music and lyrics for "Strange Fruit," a haunting song about lynching.  The song became a Billie Holliday trademark.  Time Magazine recently picked "Strange Fruit" as "the song of the century.") With a new family and a new last name the boys were able to try to live a normal life. They kept the identity of their parents a secret from all but their closest friends. 
         During the 1970's the Meeropol's became more open about their biological parent's identity. Using the Freedom of Information Act, they 
successfully sued the FBI and CIA to force the release of 300,000 previously secret documents about their parents. These documents  they felt showed their parents innocence. In 1975, they authored We Are Your Sons, a book detailing their experience as sons of the Rosenbergs, as well as proclaiming the innocence of their parents.
          Michael Meeropol edited The Rosenberg Letters in 1994. Robert is a lecturer and creator of the Rosenberg Fund for Children.
 

Robert Meeropol                                 Michael Meeropol.

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Michael Meeropol: Michael Meeropol is the older son of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg. In 1953, when he was ten years old, the United States Government executed his parents.
          He earned his undergraduate degree at Swarthmore, and another B.A. and an M. A. at Cambridge University in England and his Ph.D.. from the University of Wisconsin. He is an Assistant Professor at Western New England College and is a member of the Union for Radical Political Economics.
 

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Robert Meeropol: Robert Meeropol is the younger son of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg. In 1953, when he was six years old, the United States Government executed his parents.
          He earned undergraduate and graduate degrees in Anthropology from the University of Michigan, taught anthropology at Western New England College. Later graduated law school in 1985, and was admitted to the Massachusetts Bar.