All of the partners and employees of the firm do not do the same thing at the same time. While one partner talks to a customer, another may be negotiating with another prospect. . . . Each act by each party, by each employer in the court of business is an act performed for the benefit of the firm and for the benefit of his fellows. Imagine a wheel. In the center of the wheel, Rosenberg, reaching out like the tentacles of an octopus. Rosenberg to David Greenglass. Ethel Rosenberg, Ruth Greenglass; Rosenberg to Harry Gold; Rosenberg, Yakovlev. Information obtained, supplied. Rosenberg, Sobell, Elitcher--always the objective in the center coming from all the legs, all the tentacles going to the one center, solely for the one object: The benefit of Soviet Russia. The sources, Government sources, Los Alamos, atomic information. Sobell, Elitcher, information from the Navy, relating particularly to gunfire control; always secret, always classified, always of advantage to a foreign government. The association of Rosenberg and Sobell began at City College, and it continues until today. They have been held together by one common bond: Their mutual devotion to communism and the Soviet Union, and their membership in this conspiracy to commit espionage for that Soviet Union. That is why their classmate, Max Elitcher, was asked to join the Young Communist League when they were at college. That is why Sobell and Rosenberg joined in the concerted action to recruit Elitcher into their Soviet espionage ring. While Sobell was chairman of his Communist Party unit in Washington, delivering to its members weekly directives concerning worship of the Soviet Union, Rosenberg was working his way up in the Communist Party underground.
Rosenberg told Elitcher at Manny Wolf's that night in 1948, just as Rosenberg and Ethel Rosenberg had told Ruth Greenglass that night in November 1944, how he had realized the ambition of his life. He told them how he had gone from one Communist Party contact to another until he had achieved the coveted status of a Communist Party espionage agent.
There is no condonation for the activities of the Greenglasses in 1944 and 1945. David Greenglass is a confessed member of the Rosenberg espionage ring. . . By his own plea of guilty, by his own voluntary act, without weaving a web of lies in an attempt to deceive you, he has made himself liable to the death penalty, too. The spurious defense that Greenglass, or the Greenglasses, in order to satisfy a business grudge, a business dispute against the Rosenbergs, has concocted a story about espionage, making himself liable to the capital penalty by his plea of guilty because of the business disagreement, is as much of a concoction as the story of the defendants that Greenglass went to his worst enemy, Julius Rosenberg, for help when he wanted to flee the country.
Greenglass' relations toward his older sister, Ethel, and her husband, Julius, were such that he was willing prey to their Communistic propaganda. He committed this crime because they persuaded him to do it.
As far as Gold is concerned, the die has already been cast. The charges against him have already been disposed of. He has been sentenced to thirty years, the maximum term of imprisonment. He can gain nothing from testifying as he did in this courtroom except the initial relief, the moral satisfaction in his soul of having told the truth and tried to make amends. Harry Gold, who furnished the absolute corroboration of the testimony of the Greenglasses, forged the necessary link in the chain that points indisputably to the guilt of the Rosenbergs. Not one questions was asked of him by any defendant on cross-examination.
The atom bomb secrets stolen by Greenglass at the instigation of the Rosenbergs were delivered by Harry Gold right into the hands of an official representative of the Soviet Union. The veracity of David and Ruth Greenglass and of Harry Gold is established by documentary evidence and cannot be contradicted. You have in evidence before you the registration card from the Hotel Hilton in Albuquerque, which shows that he was registered there on June 3, 1945. You have before you the transcript of the record of the Albuquerque bank, showing that on the morning of June 4, 1945, Ruth Greenglass opened a bank account in Albuquerque and made an initial deposit of $400 in cash--just as she and David testified they did here on the witness stand right before you.
This description of the atom bomb, destined for delivery to the Soviet Union, was typed up by the defendant Ethel Rosenberg that afternoon at her apartment at 10 Monroe Street. Just so had she on countless other occasions sat at that typewriter and struck the keys, blow by blow, against her own country in the interests of the Soviets.
The truth was beginning to catch up with the Rosenbergs and their crowd. The passport photos of the Greenglass family were taken at Rosenberg's insistence. Rosenberg asked for five sets, but Greenglass had six sets taken. The five sets are now undoubtedly in the hands of Rosenberg's Soviet partners, but the sixth set is here, in this courtroom, before you as Government's Exhibits 9-A and 9-B.
We know what Julius Rosenberg told Ruth Greenglass on that occasion and what he and his wife told Ruth and David on every occasion when they were together. The Rosenbergs told them to go and commit espionage in the interests of communism in the Soviet Union, just as Rosenberg and Sobell told that to Elitcher and countless others, and that is what happened.
You heard the testimony about what was done to that console table, so that it was used for microfilming. How strange, on the one hand, the testimony from the Greenglasses that that was a present from the Soviet, the testimony from the Rosenbergs that they paid $221 for it in 1944 or 1945, when furniture was scarce, at Macy's; and then a disinterested woman (Mrs. Evelyn Cox), even in the face of adroit cross-examination, resolute in her determination, told the truth. She saw the table. Mrs. Rosenberg told her it was a wedding present from a friend of Julius, whom they hadn't seen for many years. And this remarkably strange behavior taking the best piece of furniture in the house and storing it in the closet--why did they have to hide it?
Yesterday you heard Mr. Schneider identify both of them as those who had come to him at his place of business on a Saturday in the middle of June 1950, with their children. He told us nothing of snapshots, taken for amusement of precocious children. He told us of an order for three dozen passport photos for Julius and Ethel Rosenberg and their family, who told him that they were going to France.
But it is these very witnesses whom they now attack that they themselves chose as their partners in crime. While Rosenberg attacks the Greenglasses today, seven years ago it was the Rosenbergs who took this same David Greenglass and set him to betraying his country. It was Sobell at Rosenberg's instigation who recruited Elitcher. The only ones with knowledge about the activities of these defendants are those who participated in the same activities. These witnesses were not y our choice, nor were they mine, these witnesses, Elitcher and the Greenglasses. They were selected by thee defendants as their associates and partners in crime.
We have not only the testimony of Ruth and David Greenglass about Rosenberg's espionage activities. We have Elitcher's, a man who never saw Ruth and David Greenglass or Harry Gold. Elitcher has placed the brand of Soviet spy on Rosenberg. You have the documentary evidence of Gold's registration card, the bank account, the wrapping paper, the testimony of Dr. Bernhardt, Dorothy Abel, Evelyn Cox, of Schneider, who took the passport pictures. That is why the evidence as to the Rosenbergs' guilt is incontrovertible. Their guilt is established by the proof not beyond a reasonable doubt, but beyond any conceivable doubt.
These defendants seek to escape the consequences of their own acts by hiding behind straw men. . . . Greenglass is a confessed spy and Elitcher has admitted that some years ago he did not disclose his Communist Party membership in an application; but these men under the greatest stress have stood up here and disclosed the truth about their past activities. They have not compounded their sins by trying to lie to you here in this courtroom. The question here is not the fate, or present or future, of other people. The question here is the guilt of these three defendants named by the grand jury here on trial before you in this courtroom. That is the single issue and the evidence on that issue is overwhelming.
Ladies and gentlemen, you have heard statements of defense counsel here concerning the injection of communism in this case. I repeat again, these defendants are not on trial for being Communists. I don't want you to convict them merely because of their Communist activity. Communism, as the testimony has demonstrated, has a very definite place in this case because it is the Communist ideology which teaches worship and devotion to the Soviet Union over our own government. It has provided the motive and inspiration for these people to do the terrible things which have been proven against them. It is this adherence and devotion which makes clear their intent and motivation in carrying out this conspiracy to commit espionage. We ask you to sustain the charge of the grand jury in a verdict of guilty against each of these three defendants, on one basis and one basis alone; the evidence produced in this courtroom as to their guilt oft he crime of conspiracy to commit espionage; that proof as to each defendant has been overwhelming. The guilt of each one has been established beyond any peradventure of doubt.
I am a firm believer in the American jury system. I have confidence in the perception of the jury of twelve intelligent American citizens. I am confident that you will render the only verdict possible on the evidence presented before you in this courtroom--that of guilty as charged by the grand jury as to each of these three defendants.