Editing Julius and Ethel Rosenberg (section)

===Campaign for clemency===
After the publication of an investigative series in the ''[[National Guardian]]'' and the formation of the [[National Committee to Secure Justice in the Rosenberg Case]], some Americans came to believe both Rosenbergs were innocent or had received too harsh a sentence, particularly Ethel. A campaign was started to try to prevent the couple's execution. Between the trial and the executions, there were widespread protests and claims of [[antisemitism]]. At a time when American fears about communism were high, the Rosenbergs did not receive support from mainstream Jewish organizations. The [[American Civil Liberties Union]] did not find any civil liberties violations in the case.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Radosh |first1=Ronald |last2=Milton |first2=Joyce |title=The Rosenberg File |url=https://archive.org/details/rosenbergfile00rado |url-access=registration |page=[https://archive.org/details/rosenbergfile00rado/page/352 352] |year=1997 |publisher=Yale University Press |isbn=978-0-300-07205-1}}</ref>

Across the world, especially in Western European capitals, there were numerous protests with picketing and demonstrations in favor of the Rosenbergs, along with editorials in otherwise pro-American newspapers. [[Jean-Paul Sartre]], an existentialist philosopher and writer who won the [[Nobel Prize for Literature]], described the trial as "a legal [[Lynching in the United States|lynching]]".<ref>{{cite book |last=Schneir|first=Walter |author-link=Walter Schneir |title=Invitation to an Inquest|year=1983|publisher=Pantheon Books|isbn=978-0-394-71496-7|page=254}}</ref> Others, including non-communists such as [[Jean Cocteau]] and [[Harold Urey]], a Nobel Prize-winning physical chemist,<ref name="feklisov">{{cite book|last1=Feklisov|first1=Aleksandr|last2=Kostine|first2=Sergei|title=The Man behind the Rosenbergs|page=[https://archive.org/details/manbehindrosenbe00fekl/page/311 311]|quote=The great physicists Albert Einstein and Harold Urey asked President Truman to pardon the couple.|year=2001|publisher=Enigma Books|isbn=978-1-929631-08-7|url=https://archive.org/details/manbehindrosenbe00fekl/page/311}}</ref> as well as left-leaning figures—some being communist—such as [[Nelson Algren]], [[Bertolt Brecht]], [[Albert Einstein]], [[Dashiell Hammett]], [[Frida Kahlo]], and [[Diego Rivera]], protested the position of the American government in what the French termed the American [[Dreyfus affair]].<ref>{{cite book|last1=Radosh|first1=Ronald|last2=Milton|first2=Joyce|title=The Rosenberg File|page=[https://archive.org/details/rosenbergfile00rado/page/352 352]|year=1997|publisher=Yale University Press|isbn=978-0-300-07205-1|quote=But it was the apparent parallel with France's own [[Dreyfus case]] that touched the deepest chords in the national psyche.|url=https://archive.org/details/rosenbergfile00rado/page/352}}</ref> Einstein and Urey pleaded with President [[Harry S. Truman]] to [[Federal pardons in the United States|pardon]] the Rosenbergs. In May 1951, [[Pablo Picasso]] wrote for the communist French newspaper ''[[L'Humanité]]'': "The hours count. The minutes count. Do not let this crime against humanity take place."<ref>{{cite web|first=Elizabeth|last=Schulte|url=http://www.isreview.org/issues/29/rosenbergs.shtml|title=The trial of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg|access-date=October 5, 2008|work=International Socialist Review|issue=29|date=May–June 2003|archive-date=October 28, 2008|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081028152811/http://www.isreview.org/issues/29/rosenbergs.shtml|url-status=dead}}</ref> The all-black labor union [[International Longshoremen's Association]] Local 968 stopped working for a day in protest.<ref>{{cite news |title=Unions throughout U.S. joining in plea to save the Rosenbergs|work=Daily Worker|date=January 15, 1953}}</ref> Cinema artists such as [[Fritz Lang]] registered their protest.<ref>{{cite book|last=Sharp|first=Malcolm P.|year =1956|title=Was Justice Done? The Rosenberg-Sobell Case|publisher=Monthly Review Press|page=132|id=56-10953}}</ref> President [[Dwight D. Eisenhower]], supported by public opinion and the media at home, ignored the overseas demands.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Clune |first1=Lori |year=2011 |title=Great Importance World-Wide: Presidential Decision-Making and the Executions of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg |journal=American Communist History |volume=10 |issue=3 |pages=263–284 |doi=10.1080/14743892.2011.631822 |s2cid=143679694}}</ref> [[Pope Pius XII]] appealed to Eisenhower to spare the couple, but Eisenhower refused on February 11, 1953. All other appeals were also unsuccessful.<ref>{{cite book|first=Ellen|last=Schrecker|author-link=Ellen Schrecker|title=Many Are the Crimes: McCarthyism in America|year=1998|publisher=Little, Brown and Company|page=[https://archive.org/details/manyarecrimesmcc00schr/page/137 137]|isbn=978-0-316-77470-3|url=https://archive.org/details/manyarecrimesmcc00schr/page/137}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|first=Arnaldo|last=Cortes|title=Pope Made Appeal to Aid Rosenbergs.|url=https://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=FB0C14FF345E177B93C6A81789D85F478585F9|quote=[[Pope Pius XII]] appealed to the United States Government for clemency in the Rosenberg atomic spy case, the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano revealed today.|work=The New York Times|date=February 14, 1953|access-date=September 17, 2008|archive-date=January 29, 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120129094634/http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=FB0C14FF345E177B93C6A81789D85F478585F9|url-status=live}}</ref>

Defense of the Rosenbergs surged in November and December 1952 and was organized by the [[Communist Party of the Soviet Union]]{{sfn|Radosh|2012|p=83}}—confirmation of which occurred with the publication of [[KGB]] documents obtained by [[Alexander Vassiliev]] in 2011.{{sfn|Radosh|2012|p=85}} Proponents of clemency argued that the Rosenbergs were actually "innocent Jewish peace activists".{{sfn|Radosh|2012|p=84}} According to American historian [[Ronald Radosh]], the Soviet Union's goal was "to deflect the world's attention from the sordid execution of the innocent [Jewish [[Slánský trial]] defendants] in Soviet-controlled Czechoslovakia.{{sfn|Radosh|2012|p=84}}