Danse Macabre

The execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg provoked an international fit of anti-Americanism. It was Sacco and Vanzetti all over again, as far as some American and most European intellectuals were concerned: America had formally abandoned justice, had relapsed into an undifferentiated pogrom against nonconformists.

In 1951, the Communist Party in the United States had its back to the wall. The Korean War, the revelations of Whittaker Chambers and Elizabeth Bentley, the continued oppressions of Stalin, had put the Communists on the defensive. The Party carefully looked about for ways to invigorate its ranks, replenish its coffers, and reassert its championship of the victim of the heavy capitalist heel. It needed a good fight over something; better still, over somebody. The Rosenbergs were a natural.

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Priscilla L. Buckley

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The execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg provoked an international fit of anti-Americanism. It was Sacco and Vanzetti all over again, as far as some American and most European intellectuals were concerned: America had formally abandoned justice, had relapsed into an undifferentiated pogrom against nonconformists.

In 1951, the Communist Party in the United States had its back to the wall. The Korean War, the revelations of Whittaker Chambers and Elizabeth Bentley, the continued oppressions of Stalin, had put the Communists on the defensive. The Party carefully looked about for ways to invigorate its ranks, replenish its coffers, and reassert its championship of the victim of the heavy capitalist heel. It needed a good fight over something; better still, over somebody. The Rosenbergs were a natural.