Figure in Rosenberg Case Admits Spying for Soviets

New York Times: Figure in Rosenberg Case Admits Spying for Soviets (HT: Guitar Priest)

In 1951, Morton Sobell was tried and convicted with Julius and Ethel Rosenberg on espionage charges. He served more than 18 years in Alcatraz and other federal prisons, traveled to Cuba and Vietnam after his release in 1969 and became an advocate for progressive causes.

Through it all, he maintained his innocence.

But on Thursday, Mr. Sobell, 91, dramatically reversed himself, shedding new light on a case that still fans smoldering political passions. In an interview, he admitted for the first time that he had been a Soviet spy.

And he implicated his fellow defendant Julius Rosenberg, in a conspiracy that delivered to the Soviets classified military and industrial information and what the American government described as the secret to the atomic bomb. …

In high school, I attended a presentation by Alger Hiss at the University of Kansas with my parents. Hiss was a major target of the McCarthy hearings, and it turns out that Hiss likely was a spy. Soviet documents released in recent years reveal spies in high places. That McCarthy was an egomaniac and a demagogue doesn't change that. This should serve as a reminder that it isn't as simple as good guys and bad guys or oppressors and victims in many of these complex issues.


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