Walter Schneir:THE 1953 execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, accused of delivering atomic bomb secrets to the Soviet Union, was a litmus test for the American left in the face of rampant McCarthyism, and for decades beyond.
In 1965 Walter Schneir, who has died aged 81, and his wife, Miriam, published Invitation to an Inquest, making a strong case for the Rosenbergs' innocence. Some 30 years later, with the release of decoded Soviet intelligence communications, Schneir accepted that the "Venona" transcripts indicated Julius had engaged in espionage, but noted that they supported the argument for Ethel's innocence.
In January 1950, German-born British scientist Klaus Fuchs, who had worked at Los Alamos in New Mexico, was exposed as a Soviet spy. His confessions led to his contact, Harry Gold, who claimed to have also received information from a technician at Los Alamos, David Greenglass.
Greenglass implicated his sister, Ethel Rosenberg, and her husband. Greenglass's wife, Ruth, testified that Ethel had retyped documents for Julius. Both Rosenbergs were convicted of espionage in 1951, and were executed.
Invitation to an Inquest argued that their conviction was based on documents forged by the FBI, on perjury suborned by the prosecution, exculpatory evidence withheld from the defence, and collusion between prosecutors and the judge.
The book became a lifetime project. In 1975, the Rosenbergs' sons used a new freedom of information law to view 200,000 pages of US government material on the case. The Schneirs published a revised edition of their book in 1983, claiming the new material buttressed their allegations.
But Ronald Radosh and Joyce Milton's The Rosenberg File, published soon after, used the same material, and new interviews, to claim the opposite: that Julius, at least, was guilty, though conceding the government had brought its case against Ethel simply for leverage against him.
Angry articles and letters culminated in a debate at New York's town hall, with the two couples playing conflicting tapes from witnesses, each accusing the other of fabrication or selective quotation.
The 1995 release of the Venona intercepts appeared to lay the case to rest. In the Nation, the US weekly, Schneir conceded that Julius was a spy, but continued to question the fairness of the prosecution and its verdict. In 2001, the Schneirs' doubts about Ethel's conviction were vindicated when Greenglass confessed to having lied about his sister's participation to protect his wife.
Schneir studied journalism at Syracuse University and worked as news editor of MDmagazine. He married Miriam Blumberg in 1958. He is survived by Miriam, two sons, a daughter and four grandchildren.
Walter Schneir: born December 14th, 1927; died April 11th, 2009