An Execution in the Family, by Robert Meeropol, St. Martin's Press, New York; 2003; 285 pages; $25.95 hardcover.

When Michael Rosenberg was eight when his parents were killed; Robert was only four and their parents had been taken from them a year before that.  As a result, Robert remembers very little about that part of his life.  He states that this period one of memories, not of documented facts and he is attempting to write an account of those memories and how they affected his life, rather than a carefully researched list of facts.  However, he frequently mentions the distinction so the reader knows which are facts and which are memories.  This is not a book about Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, but rather the autobiography of one who once shared their name and still their genes.         

After a legal battle in which the government tried to place the boys in fosterage, they were adopted by the Meeropols. Abel Meeropol is best known as the author of Strange Fruit, the anti-lynching song made famous by Billie Holiday. At the end of 1999 (a year early for the rash of 20th century retrospectives) Time magazine named it the best song of the century.  Anne Meeropol premiered it at a Teacher's Union meeting. Another hit was The House I Live In, sung by Frank Sinatra in a WW-II anti-bigotry short.  As he succumbed to Alzheimer's, those were the last things Abel recognized.

The Meeropols didn't have much money. They had both been school teachers and Anne worked part-time while Abel worked at home on his songs. There was a constant visit by progressive artists.  Malvina Reynolds was one.  Robert, still in the girl-avoidance age, wrote a verse to her Turn Around in which the girl had turned ten, and he suggested she turn around again.           

Because there was a trust fund raised by the Rosenberg's lawyer, they were able to attend private schools in Greenwich Village.  The faculty was mainly blacklisted New York teachers who refused to sign the loyalty oath because it implied one needed to prove innocence, a betrayal of our system of justice.  He reports that Arthur Miller's son was in his class, Angela Davis the class ahead, and Norman Mailer's daughter a couple of grades behind.  In high school in 1960, a mock presidential election showed Kennedy losing 72-70 to Norman Thomas; Nixon got 2; Gus Hall (the Communist Party's perennial candidate) apparently didn't run.         

Like many progressives in the 1930s, the Meeropols had joined the Communist Party, but soon found out the solution to problems were not that simple.  They took the New York Times and National Guardian (Socialist) newspapers, not the (Communist) Daily Worker.  While still in the party, Able was criticized for not reading Marx.  His defense was, "I know who the workers are, I know who the bosses are, and I know which side I am on.  Why do I need to know any more than that?"  To these progressives, it was be with the exploited or the exploiters.  At least that was more than the Enron workers who didn't know they were exploited until they were suddenly without job, pension, or stock portfolio, but their exploiters still walk free and filthy rich.        

As Robert neared college age, he became concerned that someone would know who his biological parents were and ask questions.  As he said, it was more to keep from looking stupid than real interest, but he started doing research into the Rosenberg case.  He, like many of us older at the time but still trusting the mass media, believed that they were convicted of espionage or treason for stealing the secrets of the atomic bomb.  This, of course, was not the case.  They had no connection with nuclear research.  The only significant secret - that it was possible – was revealed in August 1945.  They were killed for "conspiracy to commit espionage" - in other words, planning a crime that was never committed.

David Greenglass, did work at Los Alamos, and did spy for the Soviet Union. However, in an FBI deal, he was given a relatively short (10 year) time in prison and his wife left alone in exchange for perjured testimony that would kill his sister and brother-in-law.  It is still unclear whether Julius Rosenberg was involved in conspiracy, but Greenglass has finally admitted that Ethel was totally innocent of the participation he claimed. Nuclear scientists say the drawing he passed to the Soviets had no value. Freedom of Information Act evidence shows much of the evidence was manufactured by the FBI and there was ex parte activity all through the trial and afterwards.  There is some evidence that Julius gave some industrial information to the Soviets in WW-II while we were allies (and therefore not "the enemy" as the Constitution requires), but knew nothing about the atomic bomb.  Furthermore, evidence is conclusive that the government knew Ethel was innocent and killed her anyway.

In their mid 1970s attempt to reopen the Rosenberg case, the brothers toured the country, outlining the falsity of the government case, and demonstrating its connection with McCarthyism was the same anti-constitutional movement that gave rise to Watergate in that time.  He didn't need to leave the chronology to point out that the same forces are behind the current trashing of the Constitution.  However, the media only reported the brothers believed their parents were innocent and never reported the reasons why they believed it.       

Robert became a lawyer and worked in estate planning - mainly helping the rich escape taxes until the contradiction was too much for him. He then quit to form the Rosenberg Fund for Children to help the children of others accused of anti-government activities.  Innocent or guilty, their kids were innocent, yet suffered as much or more. Grants are relatively small for any one child, and primarily for educational or cultural advantages they could not otherwise afford. 

Early, Meeropol supported the death penalty and hoped it would be used on those who murdered his parents.  Now he opposes the death penalty as assuming human infallibility and for the dehumanizing effect of government action for private revenge.  He terms his Rosenberg Fund for Children "Constructive Revenge."