by Natasa Shepherd

Created on: April 15, 2009   Last Updated: December 21, 2010

The Era of McCarthyism, which happened during the Cold War is greatly similar to the famous Salem Witch Trials. Both were associated with fear, false accusations, and little or no true evidence. During the Salem Witch Trials people were accused of being witches and burned. As far as McCarthyism goes it was a case of being a communist or a spy. Either way, both events had its victims, some innocent and some deserving the punishment. Two of the victims of McCarthyism were Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, for whose trial it is often said to be one of Cold War's "most enduring controversies" (Ellison, p.1).

"Rosenberg and his wife, Ethel, were executed in the Sing Sing electric chair in 1953 for what FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover called the "crime of the century- helping the Soviet Union get their hands on blueprints for the atomic bomb in WWII"(MI Daily, p.1), and behind they left two sons, Robert and Michael. Their children were, after the Rosenberg's arrest, adopted by Abel Meeropol. Both Robert and Michael have, since, done whatever they could to clear their parent's name. They also created The Rosenberg Fund for Children, which is a public foundation that provides for the emotional and educational needs of kids, in USA, whose parents were targeted because of their progressive activities.

In the Rosenberg's case, there was a lot of name passing, which started with
Fuch, one of the scientists working on the Manhattan Project. Klaus Fuchs led FBI to a middle aged chemist named Gold, also known as "Raymond", who recieved information from Fuchs. From Gold they found out about Ethel Rosenberg's brother, David Greenglass. Greenglass told them about working with Julius Rosenberg. Now, Rosenberg was "just the next in a row of falling dominoes" (Linder, p.3), but he put an end to it when he refused to give out names and denied having anything to do with the accusations. When FBI agents came to his apartment, on June 16, 1950, and told him about Greenglass' accusation, Julius Rosenberg said, "bring him here- I'll call him a liar to his face" (Rosenberg).

Rosenberg's wife, Ethel "was virtually non-existent but they had to develop a case against her in order to get a stiff prison sentence to convince [Julius] to cooperate" (Meeropol). The plan, however, was not working and the Government had to prosecute Ethel Rosenberg as an equal partner to her husband, what else could they do? The Government surely wasn't going to come out and tell the public about all the lies, they had to try

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