On Doing Time (Paperback)

by Morton Sobell (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
During his eighteen-plus years in prison, five of which were spent at U.S.P. Alcatraz in the middle of San Francisco Bay, Morton Sobell learned well the price of "doing time."

In 1951, during the dark days of McCarthyism and the Red Scare, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg and Morton Sobell were convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage. Sobell was sentenced to thirty years in prison. The Rosenbergs were sentenced to death and were later executed. The trial remains one of America's most controversial.

This is the story of what led up to the trial, to the conduct of the trial--including an account of justice subverted to political ends--and of one man's odyssey through Depression-era radicalism and the hard world of the United States prison system.

It is also the story of an intelligent man determined not to be broken, determined to achieve vindication.

As part of that effort, after he was released, the author obtained hundreds of previously classified FBI documents that graphically demonstrate the goverment's motives and methods during the Rosenberg-Sobell trial, and beyond. The most relevant of these documents are included on a CD (which comes with the book), giving the reader a rare opportunity to compare the author's original suppositions and his adversary's documentation of its strategy.

From the Publisher
This is a reissue and update of the book originally published in 1974 by Charles Scribner's Sons. It includes photographs of Alcatraz not in the original volume as well as a hybrid (Windows/Mac/Linux) CD-ROM containing hundreds of FBI documents related to the investigation and monitoring of Morton Sobell, obtained by the author through the Freedom of Information Act.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 448 pages
• Publisher: Golden Gate National Parks Association; Revised edition (February 12, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1883869536
• ISBN-13: 978-1883869533
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,529,503 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Moving, engrossing and still important, March 28, 2001

By	Lee Gruenfeld "www-leegruenfeld-com" (California) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

When "atom spies" Julius and Ethel Rosenberg went on trial in 1950 there was a third American defendant. While the Rosenbergs took the stand in their own defense and adamantly maintained their innocence, which so angered the judge and prosecutors that the death penalty was imposed, Morton Sobell remained silent on advice of counsel, and waited for the government to fail to make its case against him. He was convicted anyway, but his silence might have saved his life: He was spared the death penalty and sentenced to a 30-year prison term instead. He served 18 years, 5 years of them on Alcatraz, which is where much of ON DOING TIME takes place. The book was first published in 1974 but was just reissued by the Golden Gate National Park Association. 

Despite the title, the book is about much more than what it was like for an extraordinarily decent, gentle and probably innocent man to be locked away in the country's most notorious maximum security penitentiary. This is Sobell's first person account of the events surrounding one of the most infamous trials in American history, which sparked demonstrations all over the world and began a debate that still rages today. His insights into the trial and the events leading up to it are as valuable historically as they are fascinating. The new edition includes a CD that contains many of the heretofore-classified documents he fought for decades to get his hands on.

Sobell's quest to unearth these documents was not driven by his desire for exoneration -- he seems unconcerned with whether anyone believes in his innocence -- but by his fervent wish to expose what he considers the devious, underhanded and outright fraudulent means to which the government will resort in its pursuit of "undesirables" in emotionally-charged situations. (I imagine he danced a jig when the government's reprehensible treatment of Wen Ho Lee was exposed.) He is particularly incensed about the highly-publicized "Venona" decryption project that purportedly led to his and the Rosenbergs' apprehension and, using the files on the CD, does a mighty convincing job of demonstrating how absurd some of the links between cabled code names and actual persons were arrived at.

ON DOING TIME, however, is not another rehash of the facts and speculation already well-covered in dozens of books. It is the very human tale of how it all affected one man who, to this day, refuses to be bitter and insists on casting his personal experience in a larger historical and political context, all of which is heavily layered with his persistent and unapologetic left-wing slant. It is extremely well-written, gripping and enlightening, and I recommend it very highly to the general reader as well as the armchair historian.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What the "Justice" and prison systems are about, December 21, 2005

By	Tony Thomas (SUNNY ISLES BEACH, FL USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

This review is from: On doing time

This book is very readable. Morton Sobell illustrates the unfairness of the whole "justice" system and of life in prison. His eye is always on how the frameups and the brutal treat the ordinary people trapped in these system face, rather than on on the special features he faced as the victim of a cold war frameup as an "atom bomb spy." Sobell is a very wise and observant man. As an engineer with a Master's degree, has seems to be quite able to take things apart, analyze them, and tell us how they work. Yet, he also is very honest, very frank, and very revealing about his personal and emotional struggles.

I really liked Sobell's depiction of the trial that Julius and Ethel Rosenberg and he faced as "atom bomb spies." Exposes have been published about how the prosecution and the judge with the backing of the Eisenhower administration and the FBI framed up Sobell and the Rosenbergs. However,Sobell's picture of the difficulty of finding a decent lawyer, the struggle he had having any say so about his defense, and his continued struggle to secure better attorneys, speaks to the problems that ordinary working people have with the legal system.

My favorite part of the book was Sobell's description about doing time in his five years at Alcatraz. He takes apart the prison system, and highlights the injustice and irrationality of the wardens, the humanity of the prisoners, and how the system degrades and tortures the inmates. He also gives a picture of struggle inside the prisons, including a successful strike at Alcatraz that did win prisoners better food and treatment.

Sobell is quite frank and very moving in the way he reveals his emotional struggles during the trial and his inprisonment. He's not afraid to admit there were times when depression or dispair overcame him. He is quite frank about the ways he and his wife tried to keep a flame of sexuality going, but also about their decision to allow his wife other partners. Here as elsewhere, Morton Sobell isn't afraid to admit weaknesses he had that he is ashamed of.

Even though this is a fairly long book, I wished it had gone on and on to give more detail on his years in priosn after Alcatraz.

The book also comes with a CD with copies of freedom of Information Act files documenting the government frameup Sobell and the Rosenbergs face.

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars My opinion of "On Doing Time" and Morton Sobell, June 21, 2001

By	MARK LAIRSON (Houston, TX) - See all my reviews

This is an excellent book and details of how a man that would in this day and time be considered a "white collar criminal" was treated like the most hard criminals.Like being sent to Alcatraz.Its goes into every detail of how he delt with being locked up for 18 years( 6+ years on Alcatraz).Unlike many criminals who had no family on the outside, this man did.It would be interesting for him to "undate" this book by adding a chapter on his 31+ years out of prison. (That is how sucessful was he or any further and later views on his being in prison.)