Clare Mulley

The great betrayal of Ethel Rosenberg

The convicted spy was in fact a victim of Cold War hysteria, says Anne Sebba, betrayed by the American legal system and by her own brother

Ethel Rosenberg after her arrest on charges of espionage, 11 August 1950. Credit: Getty Images 
issue 19 June 2021

  • Ethel Rosenberg: A Cold War Tragedy

    Anne Sebba

    Weidenfeld & Nicolson, pp. 304, £20

Ethel Rosenberg was an exceptional woman. Born with a painful curvature of the spine to a poor family of Jewish immigrants and a mother who never loved her, she was determined to make her life matter. A talented singer, she won a place at New York’s prestigious Schola Cantorum and performed at Carnegie Hall.

GIF Image

Disagree with half of it, enjoy reading all of it

TRY A MONTH FREE
Our magazine articles are for subscribers only. Try a month of Britain’s best writing, absolutely free.

Read next

Trending

Stephen Pollard

Bridget Phillipson is destroying Britain’s education system

Congratulations are due to the Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson. Not many ministers achieve much at all, let alone ticking off the core of their agenda within a year of taking office. But figures to be released this week, which show that over 13,000 children have had to leave private schools over the past academic year,

More on anti-semitism

Also by Clare Mulley

Latest

Comments

Join the debate, free for a month

Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first month free.

Already a subscriber? Log in