The Trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg

On March 6, 1951, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg went to trial in federal court on a charge that, in its very name, is the distillation of what historian Richard Hofstadter calls the "paranoid style": conspiracy to commit espionage. Of the three basic elements of the style Hofstadter cites in his 1964 essay "The Paranoid Style in American Politics"-conspiracy, corruption at the top levels of government and networks of subversives among the people¹-the charge itself states one (conspiracy) and implies another (espionage, by definition, must involve at least two separate parties, one of which is working subversively). As various statements from the trial-including opening and closing arguments on both sides and the judge's sentencing statement-illustrate, this style of thinking was strongly evident in the court's deliberations.

In U.S. Attorney Irving Saypol's opening statement, he accused the Rosenbergs of attempting to provide the Soviet Union the means to construct or obtain "the weapons the Soviet Union could use to destroy us."² Saypol, who successfully prosecuted Alger Hiss, deliberately employs two separate tactics in this simple phrase that fit with the paranoid style. Hofstadter's essay stated "the paranoid spokesman sees the fate of conspiracy in apocalyptic terms-he traffics in the birth and death of whole worlds,"¹ and in Saypol's words, the joining of "weapons" and "destroy" fits the apocalyptic interpretation.

With the use of "us," Saypol completes the threat of apocalypse, and also outlines the conflict by the inclusive "us," implying the Soviet Union is not "us," and must therefore be "them." Before any evidence has been presented or witnesses called, the battlefield is drawn in paranoid terms. Although Emmanuel Bloch, the Rosenbergs' chief counsel, also seeks to create a group identity, asking the jurors to give the Rosenbergs "a fair shake in the American way,"² his tone falls outside the paranoid style in not clearly defining an enemy to match the American way against. In fact, Bloch went on to urge the jurors to avoid being "influenced by any bias or prejudice or hysteria," ² an intellectual plea that consciously avoids the paranoid appeal to emotion.

What makes the Rosenberg trial a particularly interesting exercise in the paranoid style is that-despite accusations ready-made for its application and at least one participant, Roy Cohn, who would later find infamy as Senator Joseph McCarthy's chief counsel³ and exemplar par excellence of paranoid rhetoric-the bulk of the trial does not truck in the hallmarks of the style. The word "conspiracy," for example, only appears twice in the trial transcript excerpts, both times in Julius Rosenberg's examinations regarding the charge he faced.⁴

While espionage is discussed several times, the prosecution and the defense examinations focus on specific details and persons involved (particularly the roles David Greenglass, Ethel's brother, and Harry Gold, a confessed spy for the Soviets, had to play), and do not overtly address a subversive network. Nor is there any focus on higher-level agents or potential spies in the upper reaches, a vital part of the paranoid style. Much of the testimony focuses on specific family relations and disputed events, such as the purchase of a table allegedly used for microfilming notes taken of Greenglass' observations while working on the Manhattan Project.⁵

However, after the evidence has been presented and the witnesses examined, the closing statements of both the prosecution and the defense fully use the paranoid style of rhetoric and argument, albeit differently. Bloch's is perhaps the more subtle of the two, because his use of the paranoid style primarily consists in the dehumanization of the enemies of his clients, primarily David and Ruth Greenglass.

Of David Greenglass, Bloch argued, "Any man who will testify against his own blood and flesh, his own sister, is repulsive, is revolting, who violates every code that any civilization has ever lived by... This is not a man; this is an animal."⁶ Literally, Bloch robs Greenglass of human status, and implies that the jurors, who he later insists are "intelligent people," ⁶ must discount his testimony.

Ruth Greenglass gets even stronger treatment; in the apocalyptic tradition of clear delineation between light and dark, Bloch stated, "If Ruth Greenglass is not the embodiment of evil, I would like to know what person is? Is Ruth Greenglass the kind of person that can be trusted?" ⁶ The obvious implication is that she can not. Toward the end of his summation, Bloch takes the last step in his paranoid rhetoric by arguing for the Rosenbergs' humanity: "[Ethel] wanted to help [David Greenglass]. That is human. Can we condemn every member of a family who wants to stick to another member of the family? What is so terrible? Wouldn't you do it, and wouldn't I do it?" ⁶ By framing the Rosenbergs in a human light-by essentially drawing them into the group identity of the jurors-he invites disassociation with the Greenglasses, and by extension, the prosecution's case.

Saypol's argument, on the other hand, makes no subtle distinctions. In his summation, the paranoid phraseology is plain to see. He begins almost immediately, invoking the idea of a network in a few sentences: "Imagine a wheel. In the center of the wheel, Rosenberg, reaching out like the tentacles of an octopus...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."⁷ Using strong imagery and the idea of connections reaching from Rosenberg to the Soviet Union, Saypol defines the Rosenbergs in terms of both their conspiracy and their network, thus completing two-thirds of the paranoid style trinity. With his later invocations of Los Alamos, ⁷ the specter of government officials being involved, even if uncorroborated, is summoned, and the trinity is complete.

The idea of a shadow network gets plenty of play in Saypol's closing argument. He references the idea frequently: discussing David Greenglass' involvement in "the Rosenberg espionage ring,"lumping the other co-defendant, Morton Sobell, and the Greenglasses together as "the Rosenbergs and their crowd," finally summing them all up as "associates and partners in crime." ⁷ Saybol repeatedly plays on the idea of most of the witnesses being bound together, shoring up the argument of a group bent on taking American secrets and providing them to a government following a different philosophy, one already defined as "them."

But what of the presiding justice, Judge Irving Kaufman? The lawyers certainly practiced the paranoid style, but would Kaufman? The first sentence of his statement begins, "Citizens of this country who betray their fellow-countrymen,"⁸ which is a good indicator; the idea of treachery carries within it the idea of light and dark, of two clearly defined sides. Any doubt on the matter was removed with the second sentence, where Judge Kaufman refers to "Russian terrorism." ⁸ As seen in modern times, particularly in the long-running troubles between Israelis and Palestinians and America's issues in Iraq, the term "terrorism" and its relatives is an easy way to demonize one's enemies.

Kaufman's statement makes this clear in the most straightforward way possible when, in making the case for the capital sentence handed down, he stated, "I feel that I must pass such sentence upon the principals in this diabolical conspiracy to destroy a God-fearing nation, which will demonstrate with finality that this nation's security must remain inviolate." ⁸ The lines are drawn with finality, the sides chosen, and Kaufman explicitly defines good and evil in the conflict. In looking at the trial evidence-testimonies, prosecution, defense and judge's sentencing statements-it is clear that Hofstadter's definition of the paranoid style is explicitly at work in the trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. Both the then-contemporary and historical views of the trial are inescapably bound up in this approach.

1 Hofstadter, Richard. "The Paranoid Style in American Politics," Harper's Magazine, Nov. 1964, pp. 77-86.

² Linder, Douglas O. "Trial of the Rosenbergs: An Account." Famous Trials. Available at http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/rosenb/ROS_ACCT.HTM. Accessed 5 December 2005.

³ "Roy Cohn," Wikipedia. Available at http://en.wikipedia.org. Accessed 5 December 2005.

4 "Testimony of Julius Rosenberg, Witness for the Defense." Famous Trials. Available at http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/rosenb/ROS_TJRO.HTM. Accessed 5 December 2005.

5 "Testimony of Ruth Greenglass in the Trial of the Rosenbergs." Famous Trials. Available at http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/rosenb/ROS_TRGR.HTM. Accessed 5 December 2005.

⁶ "Summation of Emmanuel Bloch for the Defense (Excerpts)." Famous Trials. Available at http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/rosenb/ROS_TBLO.HTM. Accessed 5 December 2005.

⁷ "Summation of Irving Saypol for the Prosecution (Excerpts)." Famous Trials. Available at http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/rosenb/ROS_TSAY.HTM. Accessed 5 December 2005.

8 "Judge Kaufman's Statement Upon Sentencing the Rosenbergs." Famous Trials. Available at http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/rosenb/ROS_SENT.HTM. Accessed 5 December 2005.