DENYING AN AGENT AGENCY:

Bizarrely, Sebba seems to be almost unable to admit that Ethel Rosenberg ever did anything wrong. Throughout the book, she crafts endless excuses for any questionable actions of Ethel Rosenberg's. According to Sebba, Ethel's continued support for the Soviet Union after the Hitler-Stalin Pact is explained by her genuine and admirable ideological integrity, and her maintaining of Julius's innocence was induced by her hopeless devotion to her loving husband.

One may also see Sebba's elaborate use of Ethel Rosenberg's suffering and misfortune to paint a portrait of innocence, honor, and almost saintliness as an attempt to martyrize her legacy. Because she is a woman born in a society stifling to women, born to a mother unkind to her daughter, born prior to a brother eager to betray his own kin, she is somehow excused of all wrongs and made the protagonist of an "American tragedy" as though she herself had no part in inducing her own tragedy. In effect, Anne Sebba blames Ethel Rosenberg's tragedy on her mother, her brother, her lawyer, her husband, the judge, the society, and essentially everything except for her.

It is difficult to not feel the slightest sliver of sympathy for Ethel Rosenberg's troubled life regardless of her guilt or innocence. But sympathy for the plight of a woman wronged by her mother, husband, and brother and succumbing to the fruits of her own wrongdoings should not be confused with empathy with her actions, or the belief in her innocence -- both, one may assume, are what Sebba aims at inspiring in readers of this book.

The thesis of the book, as enunciated in its final pages, is how Ethel Rosenberg betrayed no one, as opposed to her husband, who, as Sebba concedes, did betray his country.

The only problem is that she is wrong. Even according to Sebba's account, Ethel Rosenberg clearly betrayed the trust of those who believed in both the Rosenbergs' innocence when she proclaimed her husband's innocence with full knowledge of his participation in delivering atomic secrets to the Soviet Union. She betrayed her duty as a citizen of the United States when she became complicit in her husband's crimes through actively concealing them and perjuring herself in court. Most important, to many who are firm in their belief in Ethel's guilt, she also betrayed her country.

After all, the Venona Records, a series of decoded Soviet-intelligence messages declassified by the U.S. in 1995, mention both Ethel and Julius Rosenberg's involvement in recommending Ruth Greenglass, Ethel's sister-in-law, to their subversive superiors. While Sebba casually casts this important piece of evidence aside as "open to different interpretations," to many historians and most reasonable readers, this is indisputable proof of Ethel Rosenberg's involvement in espionage activity.

Sebba also tends to exclude facts that may undermine her narrative. For instance, Sebba includes in this book Rosenberg defense attorney Alexander Bloch's contention that the Rosenbergs had not received a fair trial but neglects to mention that Emmanuel Bloch, Alexander's son and colleague in the Rosenberg case, in his summation not only thanked Judge Kauffman and the prosecutors for treating the defense with "utmost courtesy" but also expressed his belief that "the trial [had] been conducted . . . with that dignity and that decorum that befits an American trial." Nikita Khrushchev's revelation in his memoirs of how both Ethel and Julius Rosenberg had "provided very significant help in accelerating the production of [the Soviet Union's] atomic bomb" is also nowhere to be found in Sebba's book.

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