An A2ethics.org Question for Arborparents@yahoogroups.com

A few weeks ago, while Wall Street investment banks were imploding and sides were rapidly forming and settling on too-big too-fail rescue and bailout plans, a story where sides had long ago been formed and set in stone from another fear-tinged period in American history, the 1950s during the Cold War, briefly came to light.

This story could be considered one in the category known as 'setting the record straight.' A brief summary: in 1953, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who were members of the American communist movement, were executed for passing along the secret of the atomic bomb to the Soviet Union. The Rosenberg case became a touchstone for what we might consider rather loosely the 50s version of the culture wars. For people on the American left, the Rosenberg case represented a travesty of justice in a time of anti-communist hysteria that ruined many innocent lives. For people on the right, the Rosenbergs were spies and traitors during a time when the America's enemies were real and required ferreting them out before they destroyed the nation.

In what at superficial first blush looks to be a triumph for the "yes, they were spies after all" side, the only living co-defendant in the case, Morton Sobell, now 91, gave an interview with the New York Times on September 11. According to Mr. Sobell, Julius Rosenberg was guilty of at least one charge he faced, conspiracy to commit espionage. And Ethel, at least for Mr. Sobell, "knew what he was doing." The Rosenbergs,before they were executed, had written to their two young sons, "Always remember that we were innocent and could not wrong our conscience." Though Mr. Sobell's interview does not vindicate the government's prosecution of the case and its handling, nor excuse the use of the death penalty, it does set the record straight on the question of innocence.

Why is A2ethics.org interested in this piece of 1950s arcana? Well, there are two reasons. The first is that in February, 2008 a2ethics.org co-sponsored a reading of Tony Kushner's Angels in America with the Blackbird Theatre. One of the stories within the play involves the Rosenberg case, in particular Ethel Rosenberg's role in it. So, we learned something about the case as part of our event planning. Among our sources were the spirited and lifelong defenses by the two Rosenberg children, now in their 60s, of their parents' innocence.

So, now they face what can only be a painful truth. And this leads us to the second reason for this interest. Given that we have recently posted a review of Arbor Parents, that active group of people in the Ann Arbor area who discuss all things that pose parental dilemmas, how about this one?

One of the Rosenberg sons, Robert, started the Rosenberg Fund for Children in 1990 (www.rosenberg.org)whose mission is to assist kids whose parents have paid dearly for their political beliefs, in the case of this fund, for their progressive beliefs.

Among the comments from media requests to respond to the Sobell interview and the recent publication of Grand Jury Testimony from his parents' trial, Robert said, "I became more careful about my political activities when I became a parent." And, "This may be because I knew from painful experience the terrible toll activist parents' decisions can take on their children, and I did not wish my childhood nightmare visited on my children."

So, is that something parents should be thinking about? What do our children have to face as a result? How can we speak out about what we think and not have our children pay the price?