Ethel Rosenberg

[DeRigueurMortis]

Must admit I'd never heard of the Rosenberg's before reading this.

It's shocking and heartbreaking .

It seems she was an absolutely devoted mother, innocent of spying and executed by the US Govt when they decided to play a game of "chicken" with her and her husband, betrayed by her own brother who gave false testimony against her....

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/19/rosenbergs-executed-for-spying-1953-can-sons-reveal-truth?CMP=ShareiOSAppp_Other

Probably the best read for those who want to know how the case fitted in with the politics of the time is "Dark Sun..." by Richard Rhodes...

It is a "heavy" read literally as well as figuratively but as well as the techie stuff Rhodes does go into some detail as to how the unfortunate Rosenbergs got caught up in the Soviet espionage effort and the hysteria in the States regarding the same.

@Floisme

And meanwhile in the UK Anthony Blunt was not only spared his life but retained his liberty, his knighthood and his position in the Royal household. Funny old world.

although we will never know what or who he have up to do so.

Espionage - like war - is not a place for people who have dogmatic views on anything.

It was only in the 1990s the Soviet Union finally collapsed and the true scale of what had gone under Communism was finally known

Robert Conquest published The Great Terror in 1968 and Solzhenitsyn published The Gulag Archipelago in 1973 so there was information out there about Stalin’s appalling crimes.
As another poster said, if she and her husband had been Nazi sympathisers they’d have got no sympathy.

@Floisme

And meanwhile in the UK Anthony Blunt was not only spared his life but retained his liberty, his knighthood and his position in the Royal household. Funny old world.

Blunt was stripped of his knighthood.

Blunt was stripped of his knighthood.
Not until after he died.

One of the few things I tip my hat to Mrs Thatcher for was the way she refused to keep quiet about Blunt's treachery. If she hadn't exposed him in the House of Commons I expect he'd still be 'Sir Anthony'.

Floisme are you sure about the knighthood?
It says in google ‘Blunt was not stripped of his knighthood until the PM officially announced his treachery in 1979’ and he died in 1983.
I agree, though, he got off lightly.

I wonder what would happen if someone today was exposed for spying for the Soviets - which could happen as the Soviet Union only came to an end in 1991.
Not much probably.

Oh that's interesting TomatoCultivator. I was fairly sure because I can remember it happening and how my parents - loyal royalists - were furious that he'd got away with it and angry with the Queen for going along with the deception. But it was 40-odd years ago and I hesitate to argue with Google I wonder if he'd recently retired with honours or something but was still alive at the time? Maybe that was it?

Yeah, either the whole of mainstream media is wrong or I've misremembered. It looks as if he'd retired but was alive and well and still pottering about the world giving lectures when Thatcher outed him. That'll teach me to check next time before I shoot my mouth off

@Floisme

Blunt was stripped of his knighthood. Not until after he died.

All knighthoods die with the holder (hence why there are no dead knights buried anywhere ...)

That'll teach me to check next time before I shoot my mouth off

Memory plays strange tricks. I disagreed with a friend about which poem a quotation came from and I was so convinced I bet her £20.
She was right - but I’d have sworn on my life I was.