From BU Today:
“Americans Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed 73 years ago on charges that they passed atomic secrets to the Russians. But their prosecution has inspired bitter debate ever since, with many believing that Ethel, in particular, was wrongly convicted.
Now “we have what many believe is the smoking-gun document” to make the case for her, says Jennifer Gunter King, Boston University’s associate university librarian for academic engagement and special collections.
The August 22, 1950, document is called the Gardner Memo for author Meredith Gardner, a codebreaker for the Armed Forces Security Agency, precursor of today’s National Security Agency. It was made public in 2024 through the Freedom of Information Act.
Based on decrypted Soviet communications, the memo describes each of the individuals the government connected to the “Atomic Energy Spy Ring” and what the intelligence agencies and FBI knew about them.
The handwritten document, marked Top Secret, says that “Mrs. Rosenberg was a [communist] party member, a devoted wife, and that she knew about her husband’s work, but due to ill health, she did not engage in the work herself.”
The Rosenbergs’ sons, Robert and Michael Meeropol, will donate the declassified document to the Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center on Thursday, when the BU Libraries present Archives and Accountability: Revisiting Justice in the Rosenberg Case, a symposium taking place at the Howard Thurman Center for Common Ground.”
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