“Was he quiet when you left him?” asks the Warden uneasily. “Yes, yes,” says the Chaplain, “he was perfectly calm, and I believe he’ll stay so to the very end.” The Warden lights a fresh cigar. In the wings, the young girl awaits her cue. “You’ve got to hand it to him, Father. I never saw such nerve in my life. It isn’t bluff, and it isn’t a trance, either, like some of ’em have — it’s sheer nerve. You’ve certainly got to hand it to him.” He shakes his head in frank admiration. “He still won’t give you any hint about who he really is?” “Not the slightest. He doesn’t intend to, either. He intends to die as a man of mystery to us.”
What is this unnatural intransigence? It is not silence, no, the Rosenbergs are rarely silent. But their declarations are all bombast, impertinence, self-indulgent pique, nothing of substance, nothing Uncle Sam can use. At this very moment, there is a telephone in Warden Denno’s office linked directly to the Justice Department in Washington: the Rosenbergs need only avail themselves of it, agree to a public confession of their own duplicity and exposure of those who have schemed with them (not that the FBI actually needs this information, apparently — newspapers almost daily announce, just as they have done for the past two years, that the FBI has broken the ring and is “closing in” on the rest of the spies), and what is now a time of worldwide risk and disorder might well be converted into an occasion of national victory and joyous in-gathering, and even, if only briefly, a happy family reunion as well. But still, unnatural parents, they remain adamant. “We are confident of the righteousness of our cause,” Julius Rosenberg has written, “and we will not allow ourselves to be used as tools against the fight for peace, freedom, and decency.”
Ah yes, the fight for peace, freedom, and decency — everybody knows what a Communist means when he uses language like that. Wasn’t Uncle Sam struggling right now against a cunning Soviet “peace” offensive? They seem almost eager to die, as though in spite. “I shall not dishonor my marital vows and the felicity and integrity of the relationship we shared to play the role of harlot to political procurers,” Ethel has declaimed, her spontaneous use of that metaphor confirming what everyone has long believed about this tough little number off the ghetto streets, handmaid of the Phantom. The world has not forgotten the day twenty years ago when she and more of her kind descended upon those poor truckdrivers like frenzied maenads, ripped off their pants, and lipsticked I AM A SCAB all over their bottoms. And speaking of vows, what about her Pledge of Allegiance to the American Flag? “I should far rather embrace my husband in death than live on ingloriously upon such bounty.” Meaning the rumored commutation of her death sentence, while burning Julie, so there’d still be the possibility, eventually, of getting the spy secrets out of her. “How diabolical! A cold fury possesses me and I could retch with horror and revulsion, for these saviours are actually proposing to erect a sepulchre in which I shall live without living, and die without dying…. And what of our children! What manner of mercy is it that would slay their adored father and deliver up their devoted mother to everlasting emptiness?” Ronald Colman did it a lot better in A Tale of Two Cities. As for the children, everyone from the Judge to the President has observed that they loved their cause more, and indeed sacrificed their children to it. Even now their boys are being dragged around to all the clemency rallies to cozen old ladies with soft hearts and loosen purse strings, and their parents are actually using them as grounds for their contrariness: “As long as we do the right thing by our children and the good people of the world, nothing else matters…. The love we bear our two sons and each other demands that we hold fast to these truths, even to the death which may destroy our little family…. One thing I feel sure of — that when they are older, they will know that all the way through, we, their parents, were right, and they will be proud.” Pride, yes: that’s the key to it.
Even were they not guilty of stealing the secret of the A-bomb, such grandstanding, reminiscent of the hyperbole of their student days, together with their open-faced provocation of international unrest—“The world has come to recognize the true nature of our case and the people, the most effective force on earth, are behind us and are demonstrating a thorough awareness that they know how to fight for peace and freedom!”—would alone warrant their present condemnation. For make no mistake: that the world is tonight in crisis, that the Phantom is afoot with rare favor and authority, is largely due to the persistent agitation of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who will not talk and who will not be silent. The Rosenbergs have been honing their incendiary rhetoric for twenty years, testing their vitriol on the likes of Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller, Henry Ford and Standard Oil — they’ve even propagandized against Nabisco cookies! Ethel launched her oratorical career, after a fling at the stage, as a union whip and street shrieker, Julius as a student agitator, participating in the Stalinist purges of decadent Trotskyites. The FBI has accused them of “premature anti-fascism.” In their flat, they found an empty collection can bearing the labeclass="underline" SAVE A SPANISH REPUBLICAN CHILD, VOLVEREMOS, WE WILL RETURN! And now their training in perversity has come to fruition, their target is the entire American System:
No need for any pretense — the farce is exposed. / This harsh and cruel decision was sired in madness / part of a pattern of pro-fascist and bellicose actions by those who rule our land—/ this is political prosecution, shameless, blatant, cynical. / The executive arm of our government has become a party to murder. / They hide their demagogy under a mask of super-patriotism, wild lies and charges. / The courts have deteriorated to the point that they are mere appendages to an autocratic police force and in political cases the rights of defendants and the protection of the Constitution no longer operate. / Such a situation will only lead to a police state at home and war abroad. / While we are able, we must prevent these evil men from enslaving the mind as a prelude to complete subjugation—/ it is imperative to stand up to these fascists and nail them to their own lies! / Progressives are beginning to fight back against McCarthyism — the fuehrer of American fascism. / At this late hour, I am still confident the good people of our country will make their will felt in Washington and stop the execution!