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Lori Clune

Executing the Rosenbergs: Death and Diplomacy in a Cold War World Illustrated Edition

by Lori Clune (Author)

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In 1950, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were arrested for allegedly passing information about the atomic bomb to the Soviet Union, an affair FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover labeled the "crime of the century." Their case became an international sensation, inspiring petitions, letters of support, newspaper editorials, and protests in countries around the world. Nevertheless, the Rosenbergs were executed after years of appeals, making them the only civilians ever put to death for conspiracy-related activities. Yet even after their executions, protests continued. The Rosenberg case quickly transformed into legend, while the media spotlight shifted to their two orphaned sons.

In Executing the Rosenbergs, Lori Clune demonstrates that the Rosenberg case played a pivotal role in the world's perception of the United States. Based on newly discovered documents from the State Department, Clune narrates the widespread dissent against the Rosenberg decision in 80 cities and 48 countries. Even as the Truman and Eisenhower administrations attempted to turn the case into pro-democracy propaganda, U.S. allies and potential allies questioned whether the United States had the moral authority to win the Cold War. Meanwhile, the death of Stalin in 1953 also raised the stakes of the executions; without a clear hero and villain, the struggle between democracy and communism shifted into morally ambiguous terrain.

Transcending questions of guilt or innocence, Clune weaves the case -and its aftermath -into the fabric of the Cold War, revealing its far-reaching global effects. An original approach to one of the most fascinating episodes in Cold War history, Executing the Rosenbergs broadens a quintessentially American story into a global one.

ISBN-10

9780190265885
ISBN-13

978-0190265885
Edition

Illustrated
Publisher

Oxford University Press
Publication date

May 9, 2016
Language

English
Dimensions

9.3 x 1.1 x 6.5 inches
Print length

280 pages
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Ronald Radosh
24
Paperback
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"Executing the Rosenbergs is a highly readable, meticulously researched, and fascinating account of the case and execution of husband and wife Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who were tried for espionage. Historian Lori Clune seeks particularly to highlight international reaction to the case and how the US government responded. Uncovering State Department documents from the National Archives, Clune is able to weave a fascinating story about global reaction to the case. For general readers not familiar with the case beyond the names and the accusations of atomic espionage, the book serves as a wonderful introduction not only to the Rosenbergs but also to the Cold War anti-communist hysteria during the Truman and Eisenhower administrations....The overall strength of this excellent book is the rich detail it provides on individuals and the episode in general. Highly recommended."--CHOICE

"Lori Clune has produced a massively-documented book...Clune's approach, in terms of showing how American diplomats and people in foreign countries responded to events, adds a new dimension to the story."--Jim Burns, Northern Review of Books

"Clune details the facts comprehensively with great care and sensitivity...[A] measured and engaged history of the case and its immediate context, correcting many of the errors of previous histories."--Anders Stephanson, Diplomatic History

"Executing the Rosenbergs is a highly readable, meticulously researched, and fascinating account of the case and execution of husband and wife Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who were tried for espionage...Clune is able to weave a fascinating story about global reaction to the case...This book will fascinate those interested in the specifics of the case...[T]he overall strength of this excellent book is the rich detail it provides on individuals and the episode in general...Highly recommended."--CHOICE

"Lori Clune...has pulled off the remarkable feat of shining important new light on an old story. Clune's views are deeply held, yet her treatment is never polemical or shrill."--Andrew Preston, Times Literary Supplement

"Although the Rosenberg library is voluminous, the latest addition, Executing the Rosenbergs , has an original perspective Itt focuses not on guilt or innocence but on the response of two American administrations to the worldwide outcry the case inspired."--Miriam Schneir, The Nation

"Lori Clune's gripping monograph shows how the United States attempted to 'spin' the Rosenberg case and the couples' executions in the Cold War propaganda campaign of the early 1950s, and failed. Clune's impeccable research not only exposes Washington's efforts at shaping overseas reactions and coverage of the Rosenbergs' fate; it also points to the contradictory response the case engendered within the government itself as officials struggled to downplay critical coverage abroad and defuse an international movement that grew to include nearly 50 countries whose citizens were passionately concerned about their draconian sentencing."--Katherine Sibley, author of Red Spies in America: Stolen Secrets and the Dawn of the Cold War

"Do we need another book on the Rosenbergs? We need this one--Lori Clune's remarkable account of how the United States lost the moral upper ground during one of the Cold War's most important crusades is a must read for anyone interested in the Eisenhower presidency, global activism, Cold War politics, and espionage."--Kathryn Statler, University of San Diego

"Making thorough use of previously undiscovered State Department files, Lori Clune provides us with a long-overdue first study of the global reactions to the execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, one of the most notorious events of the Cold War era. In so doing, she makes a significant contribution not only to our understanding of the Rosenberg case but the Cold War more generally. And by showing the range and scope of responses over space and time, she convincingly demonstrates that the execution had far-reaching consequences."--Moshik Temkin, Harvard University

"Balanced, yet provocative, Executing the Rosenbergs tells a compelling story about the global ramifications of one of the Cold War's most enduring controversies. Readers familiar with the tale of the Cold War's most famous atomic spies will learn much from the wealth of new insights and information Lori Clune brings to the table. Newcomers to the Rosenberg case will find in these pages a gripping, compelling, and accessible narrative--one free of the polarizing tint that has colored other historical writings on the case."--Kenneth Osgood, author of Total Cold War: Eisenhower's Secret Propaganda Battle at Home and Abroad

About the Author

Lori Clune is Associate Professor of History at California State University, Fresno.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ 0190265884
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Oxford University Press; Illustrated edition (May 9, 2016)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 280 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9780190265885
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0190265885
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.17 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 9.3 x 1.1 x 6.5 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #2,417,104 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1,811 in International Diplomacy (Books)
- #5,749 in Russian History (Books)
- #10,416 in History & Theory of Politics

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4.0 15 ratings

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Lori Clune

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Lori Clune grew up on Long Island with a love of history, theater, and the NY Mets. After earning a bachelor's degree from Purchase College and a master's from New York University she moved to sunny California. There she taught high school history and raised two remarkable sons. Clune complete her PhD with the History Department at UC Davis and now teaches U.S. and Cold War history at California State University, Fresno. Her first book, Executing the Rosenbergs, is an exploration of the global protest movement surrounding the espionage case of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.

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An interesting take on the Cold War implications of the Rosenberg case

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on June 11, 2016

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Rather than another re-litigation of the famous Rosenberg case, Lori Clune’s monograph looks at the famous trial’s impact on the international image of the US in the early days of the Cold War. Clune sees the entire incident as something of a self-inflicted black eye by US policy-makers in the propaganda struggle with the Soviet Union. The trial judge, the FBI, and the Truman and Eisenhower administrations initially viewed the death sentences pronounced on the couple as strong deterrents against future spying. But Clune argues the unusually harsh sentences – not the guilty verdicts – fueled a broadening of worldwide protests beyond typical Communists and anti-US elements. As vocal opposition developed among normally pro-US allies – including some allied governments and the Pope – some officials in the US government argued for Presidential commutation of the sentences.

The idea of executing a mother of young children was particularly abhorrent to those protesting. Interestingly, Clune shows that as calls for mercy for Ethel Rosenberg grew, her image among government officials favoring execution gradually morphed from her being merely Julius’ assistant to a portrait of her as the devious, controlling force being their spy ring.

As Clune notes, public support in the US for the executions remained strong in the context of the ongoing Korean War. Being seen as going soft on the Rosenbergs had domestic political costs. Clune believes the surprising strength of the international protests in the context of the Cold War battle for hearts and minds should have changed these calculations.

8 people found this helpful

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A. Lucero

Must read!

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on September 6, 2017

Verified Purchase

Amazing! Well written and easy to read. A book for a scholar or an individual interested in history.

One person found this helpful

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John DiMauro

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on May 31, 2017

Verified Purchase

Excellent read by a distinguished author. Thank you.

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ROBIN SISCHO

Interesting perspective. Who knew the world was watching?

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 5, 2017

Verified Purchase

Interesting perspective. Who knew the world was watching?

3 people found this helpful

Helpful

CBreck

A Disturbingly Biased Work

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on August 20, 2016

This is a curiously lacking book. But lacking what? I ended up with an empty feeling upon its conclusion, and soon it occurred to me what was wrong. The author Lori Clune, either by design or accident, has left out perhaps the most important part of her story: the tyrannical world presence and threat of the Soviet Union in the late 1940s and early 50s, a state of reality where hundreds of thousands of poor souls were daily tossed into unforgiving gulags never to be heard from again. Add to that a demented leadership in the person of Joseph Stalin, who really did contemplate an atomic attack on the West, and you have a government that was in every way a threat not just to the United States, but to all decent people who believed in the dignity of mankind across the globe.

Yet Clune not only fails to talk about just what kind of a place the Soviet Union was in this era, and what kind of leaders governed it, she doesn't even drop a hint in that direction. Instead this book is a two-act play: there's the Rosenbergs, whom Clune suggests were persecuted, not prosecuted, and then there is the leadership of the American government in the persons of Presidents Truman and Eisenhower, and Secretary of States Dean Acheson and John Foster Dulles, portrayed as spiteful, mendacious, and vendetta-driven tyrants peculiarly obsessed with killing Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.

There is very little detail on what exactly this fun-loving couple did to earn such enmity. Clune appears to go out of her way to avoid discussing Julius Rosenberg's copiously documented spy ring, and misses entirely the obvious culpability of his wife who, cool as a cucumber, went to her death not praying or crying or screaming of her innocence, as an truly wronged person would, but maintaining a stoic silence regarding her husband's work for the Soviet Union and her probable complicity. Ethel Rosenberg's final hours on earth bear all the markings of a true believer, in this case of someone who was more than willing to betray her own country for another.

There are also strange asides to this work that have nothing to do with anything. My favorite is Clune's moronic observation that while the U.S. government in the early 1950s was promoting the efficiency of the nuclear family (two parents, two children), this same government was more than willing to cut in half the Rosenberg family, executing the parents of the little Rosenberg boys.

What is this supposed to mean? Its a little like saying that we all believe in motherhood, so if a thug kills our mother, we should not want to see him executed because, after all, he may have had a mother, too. In other words, its a point with no point.

Clune concludes her work by proclaiming that the U.S. government "ultimately failed to convince the world that executing the Rosenbergs was anything but a morally repugnant travesty of justice," a rather wild statement that belies any objectivity the author claims to bring to her scholarship.

7 people found this helpful

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Jaha

Adds nothing to the history of the infamous spies

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on August 10, 2018

Since the big reveal that Julius Rosenberg was indeed a Soviet spy there has been scant literature on the matter. I was eager for Clune's book as it promised to be a modern look at the famous couple. I've read a number of books on this case all either slanted towards innocence or guilt. Clune takes a curiously different path by blandly acknowledging Julius's guilt but then passes it off as some minor offense and even victimizes him and his wife at the hands of the evil US government.

This book is a scant 160 pages with about equal that in citations but even so short there is surprising absence of substantial material. Most of the book seems to be prose style lists of "this country protested the execution" and "that special interest group in another country pleaded for clemency." She spends so much time prattling on about all the leftist groups and governments that pleaded for the saving of this obviously guilty couple yet she continuously harped on the US government being evil murderers. She even poses the claim that the groups protesting the execution were Communist organizations doing the Soviet's bidding and dismisses it as unimportant.

I was so unmoved by this sloppy mess of hidden ideology that by the closing pages when Clune actually considers the facts of the matter I was completely drained. The author betrayed herself with her obviously slanted view of the case and her constant refusal to acknowledge the evidence against the Rosenbergs exposes her.

This book is not a worthy addition to your history library.

5 people found this helpful

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