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Sons Admit Father Was Spy, Ending Fight To Clear Name

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The Associated Press

Published: September 18, 2008

NEW YORK - After years of professing their parents' innocence, the sons of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg are acknowledging that their father was a spy.

The about-face came after their father's co-defendant, Morton Sobell, acknowledged for the first time that he and Julius Rosenberg stole nonatomic military and industrial secrets for the Soviet Union.

"I don't have any reason to doubt Morty," the Rosenbergs' son, Michael Meeropol, said.

Michael was 10 years old when his parents were executed. His brother, Robert, was 6. After living with a series of relatives, the boys were eventually adopted.

As adults, they sued the government for documents relating to their parents' case and worked to establish their innocence.

The brothers said they concluded they could no longer claim their father was innocent of an espionage conspiracy. They still say, however, that any atomic bomb information he gave the Russians was at best superfluous, that the case against their parents was flawed and that neither deserved the death penalty.

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