The Rosenbergs

Summary

Podcast Summary: "The Rosenbergs"
Stuff You Should Know
Release Date: May 29, 2025
Hosted by Josh Clark and Chuck Bryant
Produced by iHeartPodcasts

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Introduction

In the episode titled "The Rosenbergs," hosts Josh Clark and Chuck Bryant delve deep into one of the most controversial espionage cases of the Cold War era—the trial and execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. This detailed exploration examines the complexities surrounding their alleged involvement in espionage activities for the Soviet Union, the legal proceedings that led to their execution, and the enduring legacy of their case in American history.

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Early Life of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg

The Rosenbergs, Julius and Ethel, were both born and raised in New York City. Ethel Rosenberg, born in 1915, attended Seward Park High School and developed a passion for theater, often performing at union events to add a touch of entertainment. Julius Rosenberg, a few years younger, born in 1918 to Polish immigrant parents, also attended Seward Park High School. Their paths crossed when Julius was enrolled at City College, and Ethel was working as a secretary, marking the beginning of their partnership both personally and ideologically.

[06:10] Chuck Bryant: "They had very similar views. This wasn't like it didn't take a lot of persuading, from what I understand."

Their shared commitment to communist ideals led them to join various leftist organizations. Julius was notably active, joining the Steinmet Society, an affiliate of the Young Communist League, and forming connections with like-minded individuals such as Morten Sobel and Max Elichter.

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Involvement in Communism and Espionage

Julius Rosenberg's involvement in espionage began in the early 1940s. After being hired as an engineer for the U.S. Army Signal Corps in 1940, he became disillusioned with fascism and, driven by his anti-fascist sentiments, he sought ways to undermine it, which he rationalized as a fight against a greater evil despite betraying his country.

[08:06] Josh Clark: "He had one minor brush with the FBI. In 1941, he was called into what's called a loyalty meeting... but he was like, I'm not even into politics that much, which is a lie, right?"

By 1942, Julius and Ethel moved to the Lower East Side, settling in Knickerbocker Village, where they continued their communist activities and began forming a spy network. Julius's recruitment into Soviet espionage reportedly involved direct contact with Soviet agents, although accounts vary. One account suggests that Julius proactively approached the Soviet embassy to offer his services as a spy, demonstrating his eagerness to contribute.

[12:32] Josh Clark: "Julius and Ethel were a married couple... being Jewish and coming off the heels of World War II... you cannot execute this woman."

Julius began passing critical military information to the Soviets, including details about the proximity fuse, a vital component for anti-aircraft weaponry. His espionage activities were instrumental in advancing Soviet capabilities during World War II.

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Arrest and Investigation

The downfall of the Rosenbergs began with the unraveling of their spy network in the late 1940s and early 1950s. In February 1950, British physicist Klaus Fuchs, a high-ranking Soviet spy, was arrested and subsequently implicated others within the espionage ring, including Harry Gold and David Greenglass, Ethel's brother-in-law.

[16:38] Chuck Bryant: "He would basically just... He was putting himself out there."

On June 15, 1950, David Greenglass was apprehended and, under intense FBI questioning, implicated Julius Rosenberg in passing atomic secrets to the Soviet Union. Despite initial denials, Greenglass's testimony linked Julius to the espionage activities, setting the stage for further investigations.

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Trial and Prosecution

By mid-1950, with mounting evidence from Greenglass's testimony and the covert information from the Venona cables—intercepted and decrypted Soviet communications—the FBI proceeded to arrest Julius Rosenberg on July 17, followed by Ethel Rosenberg on August 11, 1950. Both were charged with conspiracy to commit espionage under the Espionage Act of 1917.

[21:11] Josh Clark: "They could only use them as background information and then they had to extract these confessions and piece together like as if those things didn't exist."

The trial, led by fervent anti-communist prosecutors such as Roy Cohn, was swift and heavily influenced by the prevailing Cold War hysteria. The judge, Ervin Kaufman, known for his harsh stance against communists, presided over the proceedings with little sympathy for the defendants.

[37:04] Josh Clark: "Which means it could be wrong, but yeah."

The prosecution's case hinged on testimonies from various witnesses, including former spies like Elizabeth Bentley and Harry Gold, who provided damning accounts of the Rosenbergs' activities. Despite the gravity of the charges, the Rosenbergs maintained their innocence throughout the trial.

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Public Reaction and Appeals

The verdict of guilty came in March 1951, with Julius and Ethel Rosenberg sentenced to death by electric chair. This decision sparked widespread controversy and debate, both domestically and internationally. Prominent figures such as Albert Einstein, Pablo Picasso, and members of the Jewish community vocally opposed the death sentences, arguing that the evidence against Ethel was insufficient and that the executions were unjust.

[35:42] Chuck Bryant: "In 2001, David Greenglass said, yeah, I lied about my sister because I wanted to save my own wife."

Multiple appeals were filed in an attempt to overturn the convictions, but these were largely unsuccessful. Notably, the Supreme Court delayed the executions for several years, allowing public sentiment to shift somewhat in favor of clemency. However, these efforts were ultimately unable to prevent the Rosenbergs' execution.

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Execution and Aftermath

On June 19, 1953, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed, becoming the first American civilians to be put to death for espionage against the United States. Their execution was met with international condemnation and remains a contentious chapter in American legal history.

[48:39] Chuck Bryant: "They were put to death at 8pm and that judge was a real SOB."

Their sons, Robert and Michael Rosenberg, were subsequently adopted by Anne and Abel Meeropol. Both sons spent much of their lives attempting to clear their parents' names, contending that Ethel's involvement was minimal or nonexistent. It wasn't until the release of the Venona cables in the 1990s that substantial evidence surfaced confirming Julius's active role in espionage, although debates about Ethel's involvement continue.

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Legacy and Historical Impact

The Rosenberg case remains a pivotal moment in the annals of American espionage and Cold War history. It underscores the intense fear of communism that permeated American society and judicial systems during the mid-20th century. The case also highlights issues related to judicial fairness, the reliability of testimonial evidence under duress, and the use of the death penalty in politically charged cases.

The ongoing debates and scholarly reassessments of the Rosenbergs' culpability and the proportionality of their punishment continue to influence discussions about justice and governmental power in the United States.

[52:29] Chuck Bryant: "Best not to examine that one."

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Notable Quotes

• Chuck Bryant (04:33): "This is a very big deal for a few reasons... executing these two people with two young sons when no one else was getting executed for this at the time was a travesty of justice."

• Josh Clark (05:44): "They got caught up in Cold War communist hysteria, and we're basically put into a deadly game of chicken."

• Josh Clark (11:17): "But I saw that one of the things he was well known for, it's like he hated fascism so much that he would like be seen walking down the street and be like, 'I hate you, fascism.'"

• Josh Clark (35:50): "They were immediate to execute them, even though no one thought that was the right thing to do."

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Conclusion

The episode "The Rosenbergs" offers a comprehensive examination of one of America's most infamous espionage cases. Through meticulous research and engaging dialogue, Josh Clark and Chuck Bryant present a nuanced portrayal of the Rosenbergs, balancing the historical facts with the moral and ethical questions their case invokes. This episode serves as an essential listen for anyone interested in Cold War history, espionage, and the complexities of justice during times of national fear.

Transcript

[Chuck Bryant]

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[Josh Clark]

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[Chuck Bryant]

Youf Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.

[Josh Clark]

Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh and there's Chuck. And this is Stuff youf Should Know, the podcast.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right. We didn't Start the Fire edition. It's funny because that may have been the first time I've heard about the Rosenbergs. Rosenbergs. H Bomb, Sugar Ray, Panmunjom.

[Josh Clark]

What was that last part? I've never known what the heck he was saying.

[Chuck Bryant]

P A N M U N J O M. One word. Panmunjom. Brando, The King and I and the Catcher in the Air.

[Josh Clark]

All right, back up. What is Panmujom?

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, I don't know, buddy. You'll have to listen to the We Didn't Start the Fire history podcast. Because I was like earlier today, I was like, oh, man, what a great basis for a history podcast. No, yeah, of course. It was a thing.

[Josh Clark]

That's awesome.

[Chuck Bryant]

But you know, it's got a shelf life. Cause they, I guess went through all of them from 2021 to 2023.

[Josh Clark]

So was each lyric its own episode?

[Chuck Bryant]

I don't know. I mean, I would. I mean, that's how I would do it. Because you can get a lot of mileage out of that song for sure.

[Josh Clark]

That's really cool. Hats off.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I didn't check it out, but.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, I didn't check it out.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's a man. Surely they didn't do one each because there's so many references and they only ran for two years. Unless it was a daily show.

[Josh Clark]

Maybe they just got Bored after, like, halfway through. Like, forget this.

[Chuck Bryant]

Anyway, this is. That's Billy Joel's worst song, probably. And this is. This is a podcast about the Rosenbergs.

[Josh Clark]

Well, what was his best song? And if you don't say Uptown Girl, you're wrong.

[Chuck Bryant]

Probably Miami 2017.

[Josh Clark]

I don't even know what that is.

[Chuck Bryant]

I've seen the lights go out on Broadway. That's a great song. But I'm a Billy Joel. Like, super. I'm a Stan. So are you really? Oh, yeah. You didn't know that?

[Josh Clark]

No, I had no idea.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Glass Houseless was the first record I ever bought then. I've seen him live, like a dozen times.

[Josh Clark]

I had no idea.

[Chuck Bryant]

It's kind of cool to listen to Billy Joel now, but I suffered many decades of people making fun of me. Cause I would go see a pavement show and then put on Billy Joel the next day.

[Josh Clark]

Man, people just stink sometimes.

[Chuck Bryant]

Hey, man, I have a variety of tastes, as do you.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, for sure. And people should be left alone, not have their tastes made fun of.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I'll go to bat for Billy Joel any day of the week, my friend.

[Josh Clark]

I'll tell you who maybe should have been left alone, and that's Ethel Rosenberg.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. I guess we should give a sort of an overview of this before we dig in.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, fair enough.

[Chuck Bryant]

So the Rosenbergs, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, were a married couple. They lived in New York City. Were from New York City, and they were convicted of committing espionage in 1951 and executed and put to death, which was. This is a very big deal for a few reasons. One is because a lot of historians basically say, like, I don't think Ethel did this, and she was probably innocent, even though Julius did. And a lot of people say. And even if he did, and she might have known about it, like executing these two people with two young sons when no one else was getting executed for this at the time was a travesty of justice.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And as we'll see, they got caught up in Cold War communist hysteria, and we're basically put into a deadly game of chicken, essentially, is what. What it amounts to. And totally, it's one of those blemishes on the Department of Justice that's never really going to go away, that they did this. We'll see, we'll explain. But it's just a sad story all around. We want to say Julius Rosenberg definitely was a spy for the Soviet Union. An enthusiastic one whose spy career spanned more than a decade. Yeah, Ethel probably was in some way, shape or form, at least. Abetting it, if not some way minorly supporting it. She may have also played an even bigger role. But I personally do not think that both of them were innocent. Some people say that just based on the research I've done, it just seems clear as day that they weren't both innocent. But to put them both to death. They were not the only spies who were caught and convicted during the Cold War. They were the only spies caught and convicted during the Cold War who were executed. And that's what makes the whole thing so significant.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, for sure. So let's go back and talk a little bit about their early life. We can kind of breeze through this first part, but I mentioned they were both born in New York. Ethel was born there in 1915, had a few brothers, went to Seward Park High School. She was big into theater, and this would come up because she loved to sing and dance. And later on, when she started to get a little political and was going to union events, she would perform sometimes, I guess, to just make it a little more fun. Like, hey, here's we're at the union meeting. And now here's a song from Ethel, I guess, at the time. Greengrass.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. The Communist Blues with a nice little Communist tap dance.

[Chuck Bryant]

Julius was also born in New York. He's a few years younger, born in 1918 to Polish immigrants, and he also went to Seward Park High School. But I don't think they knew each other there. It seemed like they met when he was at City College and she was working as a secretary.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And by this time when they met, they had both. Their interests in communism had definitely blossomed. I think Julius is even more than Ethel's by then. But Ethel, I think, had participated in a strike and was fired from her workplace for participating in a strike. And she was like, I think I'm into workers rights now. So when they met, it was at a charity benefit for the International Siemens Union. S E A M E N so they were both like, I'm a communist, you're a communist. Let's get together and make little Communist.

[Chuck Bryant]

Babies and do the Communist shuffle. Yeah, yeah. He was definitely more into it. He joined a group called the Steinmet Society, who was an affiliate of the Young Communist League. And he had a couple of friends that are gonna come up later in a sort of a smallish way, but just put pins and the names Morten Sobel and Max Elichter, who were buddies he made while he was sort of in this. Affiliated with the Young Communist League. Group Society.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And they have very similar ideas to his. And in 1940, did you say that he trained as an electrical engineer? That's what he studied.

[Chuck Bryant]

No, but that's. You're right, yeah.

[Josh Clark]

He was hired as an engineer for the US Army Signal Corps. And when he was hired, he clapped his hands and rubbed them together and said, what can I steal? And pass along his secrets to the Soviet Union?

[Chuck Bryant]

Essentially, yeah, basically. He had one minor brush with the FBI. In 1941. He was called into what's called a loyalty meeting, I guess to sort of sniff people off the case and see how loyal they were to the United States. Because they found a couple of mentions of Ethyl in the FBI files. One that she had signed a petition for a Communist city council candidate and another that was just someone who gave a tip that accused her of having communist leanings. But he was like, I'm not even into politics that much, which is a lie, right? Let alone communism, which was also a lie. And so they pretty much dropped the case. And in 1942 they moved to the Lower east side, to the Knickerbocker Village and started having those baby communists, like you said.

[Josh Clark]

Is the Knickerbocker Village still around? Is that like a neighborhood in the Lower east side?

[Chuck Bryant]

I don't hear it referenced. I mean, I'm sure you could tell where it was, but I don't know if there are any modern references or signage or anything like that or I might be wrong, but I've never seen it.

[Josh Clark]

Maybe it's the KBV that all the cool people in New York talk about.

[Chuck Bryant]

What is that?

[Josh Clark]

Knickerbocker Village.

[Chuck Bryant]

Gotcha.

[Josh Clark]

Okay, so we've laid the foundation. There's Julius, there's Ethel. Their kids have come along. They're both very loyal communists especially as we'll see. And Julius is big time into spying and he became a spy. It's not actually clear how that happened, to tell you the truth. There's many different accounts. One is Julius's account, which is that he never spied and that he was framed by the government. Yeah, that's demonstrably untrue. His brother in law David's account, which we'll get into more later. But he basically said that Julius would like. He actually went so far as to go to the Soviet embassy in New York and said, hey, can I do some spying for you guys? I'm a big fan. Like he would. He would basically just. He wanted to spy. He was putting himself out there. And then there are a couple of others that are probably likelier than either of the other two.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. One Soviet agent named Alexander Fexelov said he was just introduced to another Soviet agent at a Labor Day rally in Central Park. His name was Semyon Semyonov. And then other people said, no, it was another intelligence person. So we don't know how he got into it. But to set the stage of why he might have done this, it was a time in the 1940s when the US and the Soviets were allied against the Nazis. And there are historians that say, like Julius didn't think he was betraying the us he thought he was fighting fascism. When he sort of started getting into spying for the Soviets, I don't know about that, but that's what some people say.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, I think that's the most polite way you could put it. Another way to say it is maybe betraying the United States was just an incidental part of it.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, that's a good way to say it.

[Josh Clark]

But I saw that one of the things he was well known for, it's like he hated fascism so much that he would like be seen walking down the street and be like, I hate you, fascism. And he'd be punching the air. Yeah, he hated fascism. So that was one of his big motives for sure.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

And in 1942, so he was hired in 1940, I guess he laid a little bit of groundwork for people trusting him. In 1942 he started passing weapons information to the Soviets and some pretty big ones too. One of the ones I saw was a proximity fuse and that is a tiny radio that is used in anti aircraft guns that basically tells the anti aircraft gun, okay, that plane is now in range to do maximum damage to it. Fire. Yeah, that's definitely something you want to have on your anti aircraft gun. And he passed that along to the Soviets. That was just one example. And he was first handled by Semyon Semyonov, who you mentioned earlier. He got handed off then to Alexander Feklasov, who you also mentioned earlier. And so those two's account of how he got into spying are probably the likeliest because they were his spymasters when he was a spy.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, agreed. Also during this time, and this is pretty key, he was trying to recruit other people who had the sort of same political leanings as him and recruit them. And one of those people was the aforementioned brother in law. So this is David Greenglass and this is Ethel's, Ethel's brother. So in March 1945, he was fired from the Signal Corps. The FBI said, wait a minute, you've got a Communist Party membership card and it's got your name on it. And he was like, oh, okay. So I don't work there anymore. I'm going to start my own business with Ethel's brothers, David, who I just mentioned, and Bernie. And it's called Pit Machine Products. And that did not go well. I guess that just wasn't a good business. I think David accused Julius of being a bad business person. He accused David of being a bad foreman. And by 1948, the company was almost not a company anymore.

[Josh Clark]

No, it was just down to the original investors. I just made scare quotes. Who were Julius and Ethel's two brothers, David and Bernie. Right. So another big part of this problem, I guess we should say what we're describing now is animosity that kind of grew up between David and Julius specifically. There was just some tension, even though they still remained in one another's lives, highly involved in one another's lives. Some historians point to this specific instance of them going into business together, which is always a bad idea to go into business with family across the board. Okay. Again, we'll go back to my original motto. Never trust family.

[Chuck Bryant]

Never trust family, man. He'd been saying that for years.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, well, Julius Rosenberg would agree with me, so would Ethel, but. So David started to become resentful and there was animosity throughout this period. And some people point to that as the basis of what came later.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, for sure. David had borrowed a lot of money from Julius without returning it. So the animosity is building. His wife, David's wife, Ruth. So their sister in law, Rosenberg's sister in law, she, in February of 1950 was lit a fire when her nightgown brushed up against the heater of her apartment. She had a lot of hospitalization and severe burns and high medical bills and gave birth to a daughter while she was recovering from this. So all this is just to basically set up, like you said, that David is, he's, he's in a pretty bad place in his life at this time.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, he's going through a rough patch.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

So we'll talk a little bit more about what happened because there's different accounts depending on who you talk to. But what we do know that happened next was that they started to get caught. So the whole thing kicked off in February of 1950 when a guy named Klaus Fuchs, who was a physicist, he was British, he was discovered by MI6 as being a Soviet spy. And he was a big time Soviet spy. Apparently the spying he did is estimated to have Helped the Soviets skip ahead an entire year in their development of the atomic bomb and huge, huge damaging spy. And when he was caught, he implicated others, but he didn't know others names, he only knew their code names. And he mentioned Raymond. Well, the FBI, the U.S. government had what are now known as the Venona cables. The US had cracked secret cables that were encrypted that the, the USSR had sent during World War II. And in it it talked about a lot of the spies working for them. And by having these VENONA cables and knowing people's different code names, they were able to basically root out at least 100 spies using these cables. And Klaus Fuchs was first and then after Klaus Fuchs was Harry Gold. Who was the Rayman that Klaus Fuchs mentioned in his confession?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, that's right. So he was his U.S. contact, Fuchs's U.S. contact. And then eventually that trickled down and Gold led them to David Greenglass, the Rosenbergs brother and brother in law. So on June 15, 1950, the feds got David Greenglass and they rounded him up, brought him to HQ to question him. And he was like, I'm not into espionage at all, like deny, deny, deny, which is I guess the sensible thing to do. But then they said no. This guy Harry Gold identified a photo of you and he went, okay, you got me, I am committing espionage. He was arrested and he said, I passed on this atomic information and we'll get to how he knew this stuff in a minute. I passed it on to Harry Gold in June 1945. I was initially recruited to do this by my wife Ruth. And Ruth was recruited by, by my no good brother in law Julius. Key to all this is that he never mentioned Ethel being involved at first.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, that's a big one right there. Just put that in your pipe and stick it in your hat, right?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Should we take a break now and talk about what came next?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, that's a good cliffhanger.

[Josh Clark]

Okay, we'll be right back. For adults with moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea or OSA and obesity, refreshing sleep may be hard to come by. And who likes to lag and drag through the day.

[Chuck Bryant]

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[Josh Clark]

Loud snoring, choking or gasping for air during sleep could be signs of OSA. Don't sleep on the symptoms. Learn more at don'tsleeponosa.com this information is.

[Chuck Bryant]

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[Ira Glass]

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[Eric Glass]

This is Ira Glass, the host of this American Life. So much is changing so rapidly right now with President Trump in office. It feels good to pause for a moment sometimes and look around at what's what to try and do that. We've been finding these incredible stories about right now that are funny and have feeling and you get to see people everywhere adapting and making sense of this new America that we find ourselves in. If you haven't listened in a while, I honestly think these are some of the best stories we've ever done. This is American Life every week wherever you get your podcasts.

[Josh Clark]

So the feds have David Greenglass now who was one degree removed from the Rosenbergs and he's already implicated Julius, but not Ethel. So the FBI goes to start talking to Julius. They questioned him in June of 1950 and I guess basically the day after they started talking to David Greenglass's brother in law.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, they pretty quick.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And they didn't have enough on Julius to bust him yet. They, they knew enough because again, remember they had the Venona cables and all of these people are mentioned in the Venona cables. They had basically figured out who is who. But the Venona cables were so sensitive and so highly classified the FBI, the Department of justice could not use them in court.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh yeah.

[Josh Clark]

So they could only use them as a background information and then they had to extract these confessions and piece together like as if those things didn't exist. So they knew everything. But they had to basically get David Greenglass and then later his wife Ruth to talk.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Which they did. Over the course of a month or so, they started talking to Ruth, kept talking to David. And about. Yeah. Like, one month later, July 17, they said, all right, we got enough. We're going to arrest Julius. And then a little less than a month later, on August 11, after Ethel participated in the grand jury hearing for her husband, she was also arrested, and they were both charged with conspiracy to commit espionage. And that was under the espionage act of 1917.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Yeah. For some reason, going and being just a part of a grand jury trial and then getting arrested right after, I can't compare it to anything, but it just seems almost mean. Like there should be a break in between. Like, you think you're going in and you're going to be fine, and then bam, you get arrested on the. Like, as you're walking out. It just. Just mean.

[Chuck Bryant]

It's like the. When they invited everyone to the football game, the criminals.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, that was a good one.

[Chuck Bryant]

Operation. What was that? Was it Mintmeat?

[Josh Clark]

No, that was. Maybe that was the one where they created the corpse that they threw overboard in World War II to fool the Nazis. Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

That inspired a Broadway show, but I think maybe a Broadway show should be inspired by the Redskins football game.

[Josh Clark]

I agree. I'm surprised it hasn't happened yet.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Or at least a Simpsons episode.

[Josh Clark]

I'm surprised that hasn't happened yet. No, it did. Remember, we talked about it where they had the free boat giveaway?

[Chuck Bryant]

That's why I said wink, wink.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, gotcha. I didn't know you were winking at me.

[Chuck Bryant]

You're like. I thought you were just flirting. All right, so we should tell the story, and this is the official story, according to the Department of Justice, on how this all went down. So we're just gonna kind of tell it that way. To begin with, I mentioned David Greenglass had atomic secrets, and how he got those was he was in the army in 1943, and he was transferred to Los Alamos in August of 1944 and was around the work of the Manhattan Project all of a sudden.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, he was rubbing elbows with Oppenheimer.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

So that was August of 1944, when he started working on the atomic bomb project. A few months later, Ruth came to visit David.

[Chuck Bryant]

His wife.

[Josh Clark]

Yes, his wife, Ruth. So by this time, when she came to visit her husband in Albuquerque, she had actually been recruited as a spy by at least Julius Rosenberg. And she essentially went to Albuquerque to convince her husband to become a spy. All these, like, both couples were very much into the Soviet Union, very much into communism. So they have very similar views. This wasn't like. Didn't take a lot of persuading, from what I understand. And she basically said, hey, Julius figured out, probably as Soviet handlers told him, that you're working on the atomic bomb project. So he wants you to tell me everything you know about it, and then I'm going to take it back to him. Then he's going to pass it on to the USSR and our glorious leader, Joseph Stalin.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right. January of 1945, David went back to New York on furlough. And just a couple of days after he got back, Julius came around, knocked on the door of his apartment, and he said, hey, what else you got for me on this atomic bomb? He said, write it all down. Anything you can think of that's useful. I'll pick it up tomorrow. His wife. David's wife Ruth, was like, his handwriting is terrible. You're not gonna be able to read this. And Julia said, according to the doj, Said, not a problem. Ethel, did I mention to you, as a secretary, she can type like the wind? She. She'll type everything up. So it's nice and neat and orderly, and we'll all be a working family together in this espionage project.

[Josh Clark]

All attention will dissolve after we start spying together.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

In that same furlough visit in January, 1945, David and Ruth have dinner with the Rosenbergs, and they're actually introduced to a Soviet operative named Anne Sidorovich. And a really interesting plan is hatched here that ultimately leads to the downfall of. Of David Greenglass. Julia says, hey, Ann is going to be your contact now. She's going to come visit you in Albuquerque. By the way, Ruth, why don't you move to Albuquerque to be with your husband and you guys can spy more effectively together. Yeah, but when Ann comes to visit, you just give her all the information, and she will give it to me. We should say there were people like Ann, like Harry Gold. Their entire job was to act as couriers. And the reason why is because the Soviets rightly assumed that the. The feds were following all of their operatives in the United States. So they couldn't possibly use an operative to connect two spies. They had to use a third spy to work as a courier. That's what Ann was doing. But somebody said, what if. What if Ann, like, is indisposed? What if she, you know, gets a stomach bug and it's Just pooping everywhere. Or what if she falls in love and runs off and gets married and forgets all about the ussr? And Julius said, I've got a great idea, a plan B, if you will. And that is where the phrase plan B was coined.

[Chuck Bryant]

Are you messing with me? Okay, yeah. So one small detail here is that Ann was in Denver. So Ruth would get the information from David in Albuquerque, then visit Anne and Denver to pass this along.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

And if Anne had that stomach bug, this was the brilliant plan that Julius came up with. He said, hand me that jello box over there, Raspberry. And they were like, we've already had dessert. Why do you want this Jello box? He ripped the jello box open and took one of the cardboard pieces and he ripped that in half, handed Ruth one and said, I'm gonna give this other half to someone with a secret identity that you don't know yet. That's our plan B person. So if you show up to Denver, Ann is not there, and somebody shows up with this jello box half that I'm holding and showing you, remember, it's gonna match. You can put it together like a locket.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

That will be the confirmation of their identity, which is so lo fi. It's actually kind of brilliant.

[Josh Clark]

It is brilliant. And I think that Jello box, those two pieces are in a spy museum somewhere. They got it, and rightfully so. But it actually came into play because Ann did get indisposed in some way that I hadn't figured out. And Harry Gold, who, again, one of his only job was as serving as a courier. He showed up in New Mexico on David and Ruth's doorstep and said, hey, Julia sent me. I'm a spy. And they said, you got the password, you got the code, you got the. I don't know, what would you call an object that serves as a password? Pass key.

[Chuck Bryant]

They probably said, do you have the ripped piece of Jello box?

[Josh Clark]

Right. Or they said, I am the key master. Are you the gatekeeper Gozer?

[Chuck Bryant]

Sure.

[Josh Clark]

So he said, yes, I am the key master. Check this out. And he produced the half of the jello box and Ruth.

[Chuck Bryant]

What a moment.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, I think it was one of the other Ruth or David produced the other half and they put it together and they said, let's rap, brother.

[Chuck Bryant]

So he's now the guy David writes up. As much as he knows at that point the extra stuff about the bomb since the last meeting. And also, here's some other people that they're always trying to recruit, people within Los Alamos and elsewhere. And Gold said, great, thanks a lot. Here's 500 bucks. Which is interesting because they, I mean, they weren't doing it for money. Right. Was this just a bit of a bonus for being a good soldier?

[Josh Clark]

I think so. I don't know.

[Chuck Bryant]

Not chump change back then, nor now.

[Josh Clark]

No, I mean, they were definitely true believers in communism and fighting fascism. So maybe it was just a little a lan yap.

[Chuck Bryant]

All right, so they gave him 500 bucks. September of 1945, he went back to New York. David did on another furlough. And here he provided information right to Julius's face. Said, here's some more notes. I even drew a sketch of the atomic bomb. Julius is like, this isn't very good. And he said, no, trust me, it looks basically like that. And he claims that Ethel typed up the notes and then Julius burned those notes in a frying pan, gave David 200 bucks for his troubles, and that's where we find ourselves.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, when I saw that frying pan detail, I was like, God, how long did they have to heat those up to get them to catch fire? And then I realized they were using the frying pan as like basically a fireplace. Yeah, I got it now, but it took me a couple days.

[Chuck Bryant]

That'd be very funny in the movie though. It's just like just another 45 minutes. What's the flash point for jello boxes?

[Josh Clark]

Right. So are we at another stopping point?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, let's do it.

[Josh Clark]

Okay, we're going to stop everybody as we just hatch down. Let's talk about moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea or OSA in adults with obesity. Doesn't sound familiar. Think about how you've been sleeping lately. If you've had nights where you've been told you snore loudly or choke or gasp for air and then wake up feeling tired, it may be due to OSA.

[Chuck Bryant]

In the US moderate to severe OSA affects around 24 million adults. Many are adults with obesity and most cases remain undiagnosed and untreated.

[Josh Clark]

Don't sleep on the symptoms.

[Chuck Bryant]

Learn more@don'tsleeponosa.com this information is provided by Lilly USA LLC.

[Ira Glass]

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[Eric Glass]

I'm Eric Glass. On this American Life, we tell real life stories. Really good ones.

[Josh Clark]

My mother said, I'm sorry you weren't here because Father Sager was here visiting and he found a very nice orphanage for you. And I said, but I'm not an orphan, Ma.

[Eric Glass]

Surprising stories every week. This American Life. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

[Chuck Bryant]

All right, we're back to the contemporaneous present. When everyone had been arrested, basically right out of the gate, David and Ruth, the husband and wife team, the Greenglasses, hired an attorney named O, John Rogue or Rog or Rogy. I don't know how you pronounce that. R, O, G, G, E. And so they had a pretty good attorney. And he said, hey, here's what you gotta do. Let me ask you this question first. How much do you like your sister and her husband? He said, because what we should really do if you want to get out of this is we should blame the Rosenbergs, and if you can make a case against them, then they're probably gonna let you off pretty light. And he was right on the money with that line of thinking.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And the green glasses said, sure, why not? I have a pet theory that if David and Ethel had been closer in age, she was seven years older than him, he may not have betrayed her quite as easily. But seven years is a pretty decent amount of distance between you and an older sister. And I think that makes the betrayal all the easier.

[Chuck Bryant]

My sister's six years older, and I would totally sell her out.

[Josh Clark]

There you go. So my pet theory is correct.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right. So this led to basically a different account. Some people may say it was an account that shifted. Other people might say, no, David just basically lied about Ethel's involvement. And you might be wondering, like, well, what's the rumpus here? Like they had Julius dead to rights. Like, why did they need to get Ethel involved? This is because they were living in a time of the J. Edgar Hoover, FBI and prosecutors like Roy Cohn, who basically were like, hey, if you want to get Julius, you got to get his wife involved and use her as leverage. Basically.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And the other thing too is even though they had Julius dead to rights, he was not cooperating in any way, shape or form. He maintained his innocence until the very end. And they wanted more spies. They wanted to flip him and get more and more and more people.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

So they used Ethel, like you said, as leverage and they ended up picking her up based on the Greenglass's testimony. Remember when David Greenglass's first question, he does not mention Ethel, he mentions Ruth, his own wife. He mentions his brother in law, Julius. He does not say Ethel was part of the spy ring. Now all of a sudden he is saying she definitely was. And then even more damning before the Department of Justice came and said, like, hey, why don't you just touch a perjury to help our case out. He gave the grand jury testimony, the same grand jury that Ethel was arrested right after, rather unfairly. And he said point blank, Ethel was not involved in this.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And we know all this is true because in 2001, David Greenglass said, yeah, I lied about my sister because I wanted to save my own wife.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, he lied during the trial. He perjured himself. He admitted it. So not only did he perjure himself, he perjured himself to implicate his sister, which a lot of people think she was basically innocent, if not fully innocent. So that's a really hard thing to swallow. But we're still not done with the DOJ and what they did here.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, for sure. Julius and Ethel were tried together along with Julius, college classmate that I mentioned at the beginning that I said to put a pin in Morton Sobel. You can take that pin out now. So the three of them were being tried and if David and Ruth hired an attorney that had a pretty great idea to blame it on the Rosenbergs, they did not hire. Well, because they hired Emmanuel Manny Block, I think that was Julius's attorney. They had separate attorneys and Ethel's was his father, Alexander. And neither one of these people were criminal attorneys at all?

[Josh Clark]

No. Alexander specialized in facilitating the sale of bakeries. I don't get it. I don't understand why they hired them. I didn't see.

[Chuck Bryant]

I don't know. There had to be some connection. I doubt if they just yellow page that you know, yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Maybe they were trying to help their careers. I don't know. But it was.

[Chuck Bryant]

Somebody probably knows. I bet someone will let us know.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. So the prosecution had a bunch of federal prosecutors led by Irving, say Paul, who Time called the nation's number one legal hunter of top communists. Not who you want prosecuting you if you are a spy for the Soviets. And then the judge was also not the judge you wanted to draw. His name was Erving Kaufman, and he was known for hating communists, and he used his bench to essentially punish them as harshly as he possibly could. He was the kind of judge who was. Would actually add 10 years onto whatever sentence the DOJ was asking for in trials of communist spies. He was that kind of judge, and that's who they drew.

[Chuck Bryant]

You know, it'd be funny as if who let us know about the connection to those attorneys was Billy Joel. What if he sent us an email, said, I know this guy, and attached you'll find an additional verse that I cooked up for you.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, my God.

[Chuck Bryant]

To We Didn't Start the Fire, where I explain about the bakery guy.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And he'd be like, PS, what's this with my worst song crap?

[Chuck Bryant]

Chuck, Right? Oh, man, I can't believe I said that out loud. We have to edit that out. What I meant to say was, there is no bad Billy Joel song.

[Josh Clark]

That was perfect. There you go. We'll just clip that out and put it over what you said originally.

[Chuck Bryant]

No, I'm going to leave it in. I'm going to stand by it. Hey, listen, it was a big hit. Billy, if you're listening, I love almost everything you ever did, but you can't win them all.

[Josh Clark]

That's a great lesson to learn, Billy Joel.

[Chuck Bryant]

It really is. Okay, so one thing we should point out, getting back on track here, about this trial and the prosecution, which hated communists. The jury of 12 had one black man, one white woman, and no Jewish members on the jury. The other were ten white Christian men who all were in favor of the death penalty.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Which, you know, in their defense, like, you can't be on a Capitol jury if you are in favor of the death penalty. But still, it was not the kind of position that you would want to find yourself in. Like, this is.

[Chuck Bryant]

I never thought about that. I guess that's true, huh?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. I think we talked about it in the jury episode. I'm pretty sure that's where I got it from. Which means it could be wrong, but. Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, if you were against a death penalty, you just gum up the works. They don't want you in there.

[Josh Clark]

Exactly. Exactly.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

So they're in a pickle, I guess is what you want to call it. And they're still like, this is all wrong. We're just. We're maintaining our innocence. And the prosecution said, oh, yeah, we'll sit there while we trot out a bunch of witnesses against you guys. They brought Max Illichter, who was a classmate with Morton Sobel and Julius, Remember?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Ruth's brother in law, Lewis Abel. And I guess that was from. I guess she had a sister. I didn't see that anywhere. George Bernhardt, who was Julius's doctor. Harry Gold, the courier for the Soviets. And Elizabeth Bentley, who was also a former spy. And each one had quite a story to tell.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And if you're wondering, like, why did they get Julius's doctrine there? It's because he testified that Julius had inquired about going to Mexico. And like, what inoculations do I need to get if I go to Mexico, like, very suddenly? And the prosecution was like, hey. And I just made up the very suddenly part. But the prosecution basically took it that way and was like, hey, this is evidence. He was gonna flee, he was gonna go to Mexico. Get that doctrine here.

[Josh Clark]

Right. So let's see. Elizabeth Bentley, the former spy, she said, I saw him or somebody who looked like him once talking to Jacob Golos, who was a known Soviet operative and the head of the Communist party of the USA in Knickerbocker Village, the KBV, no less, in 1942. That's a little thin. Some of the other ones were a little more damning too.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. By the way, I know I sounded very dumb earlier when you said KBB right after Knickerbocker Village, and I didn't pick up on that. In my defense, I thought it would have been kv because Knickerbocker is one word. That's what confused me.

[Josh Clark]

Yes, but people like to like.

[Chuck Bryant]

No, I agree. I'm just letting everyone know I'm not a 100% moron. I'm just 50% moron.

[Josh Clark]

No one thinks you're a moron, or even 50% of a moron.

[Chuck Bryant]

You should read the Internet.

[Josh Clark]

There's plenty of people who don't like me either. Oh, no, I take that personally.

[Chuck Bryant]

There are people that hate us. No, I don't. I don't read that stuff.

[Josh Clark]

Good, again. They can soak their heads.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right. Kick sand, touch grass, all those things.

[Josh Clark]

So like I said, touch grass.

[Chuck Bryant]

You haven't heard that?

[Josh Clark]

No. Is that like they've been knocked down.

[Chuck Bryant]

No, I think touch grass is a more modern thing. Like when people are just social media fighting. Someone will say, touch grass. Like, you know, get off the computer, go outside.

[Josh Clark]

Yes. Yes. Yeah, okay.

[Chuck Bryant]

I think that's what that means.

[Josh Clark]

Weirdly, I came across it for the first time within the last couple weeks and I promptly forgot it.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, well, you know what they should say? Smoke grass, quit Internet fighting, go smoke some weed.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. So what about Max Ellictor?

[Chuck Bryant]

Who was that? Oh, he was the former roommate, I think. And he came out in testimony against him too, right?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. He said, Julius tried to recruit me as a spy.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, that's right.

[Josh Clark]

Not good. Louis Abel, Ruth's brother in law, said, hey, I got some money from Ruth and David. And if you know David, that is weird. So I asked him where they got it and he said Julius gave it to them and I suspect for spying. And Manny Block stood up and said, objection. And the judge said, overruled. You commie. You commie lover.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, his dad's over there rolling some biscuits out.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, I'm glad you said that. Cause I have to get this out there. I don't know where it came from, but it will not leave my head. It's Sir Mix A Lot Buttermilk Biscuit song. It's just.

[Chuck Bryant]

How do I know that song?

[Josh Clark]

Parts of it are. You don't? No.

[Chuck Bryant]

And I love Sir Mix a Glide. I just. I don't know.

[Josh Clark]

It's a weird, like, novelty song that he had like very early on.

[Chuck Bryant]

Surely for not like the rest of his serious work.

[Josh Clark]

Exactly. It's even more novel than his later stuff.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Oh, man. Seattle Zone. What a legend.

[Josh Clark]

I didn't know he's from Seattle.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, yeah. Cause when they did the. Do you remember the Judgment Night movie and that amazing soundtrack? I remember the movie well, the movie wasn't great, but the soundtrack was great. Cause they paired rock bands with the hip hop artists. Cause that was a big thing.

[Josh Clark]

Oh yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

And Sir Mix A Lot and Mud Honey were paired. Cause they were Seattleites and their song was awesome.

[Josh Clark]

Nice. Remember Body Count with Ice T?

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, yeah. I saw them at the first Lollapalooza.

[Josh Clark]

Nice.

[Chuck Bryant]

That was when Ice T was still making music and wasn't like, he's on that cop show forever now. Right?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. I mean, this is a rapper who had a song called Cop Killer. Yeah. And he plays a cop and apparently he's gone through some like, metamorphosis in the eyes of police and people who support police, I bet from hating him to Being like, hey, he's actually kind of a good guy because he plays a cop on TV so well. It's really interesting.

[Chuck Bryant]

No, I remember at the time, boy, he was Persona non grata for law enforcement for sure.

[Josh Clark]

And I still didn't care. He's like, just watch, I'll be back. In the most surprising way you can.

[Chuck Bryant]

Possibly imagine, they went as literal iced tea.

[Josh Clark]

He's like, well, not that surprising.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right. The second most surprising thing. You mean you play a cop on a TV show?

[Josh Clark]

He said, yep, Bingo. That's what he was known to say. Bingo.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, man, we're getting really sidetracked. This is a fun one. Who knew the Rosenbergs were gonna bring this out?

[Josh Clark]

I did not know.

[Chuck Bryant]

So it was a three week trial in all, like you said. They till the end said they were not guilty. The trial concluded in March of 1951. Guilty. All three defendants sentenced. The third guy, Morten Sobel, to 30 years in prison. Sentenced the Rosenbergs to death, saying their crime was worse than murder and that their work caused the communist aggression in Korea. So they were really taking the fall for a lot here. There were a lot of appeals that were launched by Manny Block & Co. Petitioning. The Supreme Court delayed things by a couple of years. All of those failed. But he did launch a pretty successful media campaign that got a lot of people very interested in the Rosenbergs sentence.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, he finally got a newspaper to agree to look into the case. It was the National Guardian, a very left wing paper. And they investigated it and produced a very sympathetic, what I take to be long form article on the Rosenberg case. And that article created a bunch of other press which spread further and further, really drummed up public sympathy to the point where they were holding vigils where a thousand people would show up in cities around the world in support of them. And people thought like, this is not right. Pablo Picasso, Albert Einstein, the Pope, they all said, these people should not be executed. Certainly not. Ethel should be executed. And the judge is like, I don't, I can't hear you. He had his fingers in his ears like, la, la, la.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And there are historians that say, like, this all just sort of organically came about because of this press. The doj, of course, was like, no, no, no. The Communist Party of the United States and the Communist Party overall launched a propaganda campaign on behalf of the Rosenbergs. So, you know, it's a bit of a he said, she said, or they said, they said in this case.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

But here's the deal. On the execution, you said it was a game of chicken early on. And I'm sure people that noticed that mention were like, what is Josh talking about? A game of chicken? And this is what you were talking about was the idea was even Herbert Hoover did not want to execute them, and it was all a ploy to try up until the last moment, even. There were supposedly people on the walk to the electric chair that were like, still going to change your mind because you don't have to die right now if you want to give up some names.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, yeah. So the execution was essentially leveraged. Just like they used Ethel, they railroaded Ethel into a conviction to use his leverage against Julius to get him to flip on other spies. They used the death sentence in the exact same way. And they expected one or both of them to be like, okay, okay, that's fine. Let's not. We got two young kids at home. Let's all just cool off. We'll give you some names and some information. And Ethel Rosenberg and Julius Rosenberg did not do that. And in fact, there was the head, I think he was a deputy attorney general at the time, who said, ethel Rosenberg called our bluff. So rather than one party, the DOJ or the Rosenbergs, veering off at the last second, they crashed head on. And Ethel Rosenberg and Julius Rosenberg were put to death, even though essentially no one thought that was the right thing to do. And that's how they went down.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And I mean, didn't you find, too, that Hoover, even himself got in touch with a judge and was like, hey, listen, we don't want you to install the death penalty here. And the judge had his fingers in his ear.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. The FBI took an official stance that Ethel in particular should not be executed. That was the official stance of the FBI. And it still happened. Anyway, it wasn't a good look.

[Chuck Bryant]

I mean, they were worried about the optics, for sure of. Especially because they were Jewish and coming off the heels of World War II, and they were like, they've got two young kids. You cannot execute this woman.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And even more so, Manny Block, remember, he was like an appeal machine. He had one last Hail Mary appeal.

[Chuck Bryant]

That was on the billboard on the highway.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, exactly. With somebody holding a check for a million dollars that he got from them for their bakery. So he filed one last appeal, and he basically said, dude, you're going to execute two Jewish people at the beginning of the Sabbath. Do you know how bad that's going to upset the Jewish community worldwide? And Judge Kaufman, who was Jewish, him, You know, I hadn't really thought of that. And Manny Block's like, great, so let's postpone this indefinitely. And Judge Kaufman said, no, no, no, we're just going to move it three hours earlier before the Sabbath starts.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. They were put to death at 8pm and that judge was a real SOB. They held a funeral in Brooklyn on June 21, 1953, where 10,000 people reportedly attended. They were buried, finally accepted after some closer cemetery said no at the Wellwood Jewish Cemetery in Long Island. And the boys, it's just still hard to believe they didn't. That one of them didn't, you know, for the sake of being a parent to their kids, didn't recant. But they didn't. And those boys, Robert and Michael, were adopted by Anne and Abel Meeropol. Little interesting side note here. Abel wrote the song Strange Fruit, which.

[Josh Clark]

Have you ever heard the Susie and the Banshees version of that?

[Chuck Bryant]

Ooh, no, but that's great.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, it's really good. That's how I first heard that song.

[Chuck Bryant]

Another reference to the first Lollapalooza even. Who knew?

[Josh Clark]

Wow, that's really something. Wow.

[Chuck Bryant]

I know, right? Did not expect that. Billy Joel is spinning in his piano stool right now.

[Josh Clark]

He's like, I know I should have accepted that offer.

[Chuck Bryant]

I know. Michael got a PhD in economics and Robert Rosenberg became an attorney.

[Josh Clark]

And both of them, they've dedicated their lives to trying to clear their parents names. And finally after years and years and years, they admitted like, okay, dad was a spy, but not mom.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

And you said that they were criticized by some people for basically choosing loyalty to Joseph Stalin over their two children and leaving them behind. And David Greenglass again, who lied and got his sister and brother in law killed, said they were stupid. He said that was a really stupid thing for them to do. To not accept some sort of bargain to take the death penalty off the table. That's his opinion on the whole thing.

[Chuck Bryant]

Wow.

[Josh Clark]

That's what I said too.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

And oh, I should say real quick, the reason that the brothers, the sons finally were like, okay, dad was a spy was because those Venona cables we talked about earlier.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

They were finally released starting in the 90s and it showed quite clearly that Julius was a very enthusiastic spy for the Soviet Union. And probably Ethel definitely knew about it, but she may have been involved in recruiting Ruth. And if she did that, she was definitely a spy. But again, that doesn't change most people's thoughts that they probably should not have been executed.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, yeah, totally. Because I mean, that's a, that's a whole different Argument. You know, it's like, maybe they were guilty, but you should not have put them to death. That's what a lot of people seem to think.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. I mean, including people from their own spy ring didn't even come close to the death sentence. It was just specifically leverage that just never got taken away because the government wasn't about to be like, oh, okay, you got us. All right. We won't kill you.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I can't do that.

[Josh Clark]

Just crazy.

[Chuck Bryant]

Boy, this was a fun one. And there was a lot of jokes. I hope it didn't come across as insensitive. I mean, that's kind of what we do here. So not be insensitive. I'm glad you try to, you know, because kind of make jokes about stuff.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. If you can't laugh about everything, then what can you laugh at?

[Chuck Bryant]

Nothing.

[Josh Clark]

Exactly. Actually, I don't know if that's exactly true, but still, since Chuck said exactly.

[Chuck Bryant]

Best not to examine that one.

[Josh Clark]

Exactly. It's listener mail time.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right. This is about. We heard from a lot of our Canadian friends. We love it when Canada points out something that they know that we don't. And in this case, it's about Coles Notes. Great episode about the Cliffs Notes guys. The name rings a bell to me, probably through American movies and tv. But as a millennial Canadian, I'm far more familiar with Coles Notes. Cole was a legendary bookstore across Canada, and so every location had a stand of Coles Notes. Booklets focused on books and plays covering covered in the Canadian school career curriculum. I even remember reading them in school alongside Shakespeare plays to understand them better. Yes, they were often used to cram before a test without reading the material. They were also used as Cole intended. Chapters Indigo is the big Canadian book retailer now, and they bought out the Coles locations, but they still print and sell Kohl's notes today. So that guy did all right in the Canadian market. Thanks for making me a little smarter each week. And that is from Natalie Gudormson Gatormsson. Great name. From Alberta, Canada.

[Josh Clark]

Thanks a lot, Natalie. Thanks for making us a little smarter this week. We appreciate it big time.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

And if you want to be like Natalie and tell us something we didn't know, we love that kind of thing. You can send it off to stuffpodcastheartradio.com.

[Chuck Bryant]

Stuff youf Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts My Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

[Josh Clark]

Let's talk about moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea, or OSA, in adults with obesity doesn't sound familiar. Think about how you've been sleeping lately. If you've had nights where you've been told you snore loudly or choke or gasp for air and then wake up feeling tired, it may be due to OSA.

[Chuck Bryant]

In the US, moderate to severe OSA affects around 20 million adults. Many are adults with obesity, and most cases remain undiagnosed and untreated.

[Josh Clark]

Don't sleep on the symptoms. Learn more at don'tsleeponosa. Com.

[Chuck Bryant]

This information is provided by Lily USA, LLC. This is an iHeart podcast.