POWIP Piece of Work In Progress – Former Abode of Dan Collins

In His Twilight, A Rosenberg Co-Conspirator Comes Clean

Morton Sobel:

“I did it for the Soviet Union,” he said, leading Mr. Radosh and Mr. Usdin to conclude that Mr. Rosenberg and his fellow American Communists “were motivated by loyalty to the Soviet Union, not opposition to fascism as their defenders claim.”

The Rosenbergs, who were accused of conspiracy to steal atomic bomb secrets from the United States, were sentenced to death and executed in 1953. Mr. Sobell served 18 years for nonatomic spying. He was released in 1969 and, until the Times interview, maintained his innocence and insisted that he had been framed by the government.

But, you know, free Mumia!

Although The Unquiet Death of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg can hardly be considered definitive, the 83-minute 1974 PBS documentary provides a historical portrait of U.S. political life in both the McCarthy era and the Watergate period of its creation. The Rosenberg case remains controversial to this day, 57 years after the American government executed them for conspiracy to commit treason with conflicting evidence turning up over the years. Facets Video deserves credit for preserving the film and making it available on DVD for the first time.

If you're expecting new revelations, you're certain to be disappointed with the film since the topic has been explored and revisited numerous times. But the film remains a fascinating document that captures the spirit of the Cold War and reveals the darker suspicions Americans began to deal with in the 1970s.

Given the fact that Julius and Ethel Rosenberg maintained their innocence to the very end when they could have spared themselves from the electric chair with even a bogus confession, they established themselves as a symbol that remains deeply troubling for the U.S. Many Americans believed at the time that the Rosenbergs were innocent pawns in McCarthyism's mass hysteria game. We're more than familiar with injustices perpetrated by non-democratic regimes, but it's harder to swallow the possibility that the U.S. government being guilty of executing innocent people for political purpose. But that's the insinuation pointedly made over the course of the film.

Not at all related:

The Lockerbie bombing killed 270 people. Among the many Americans killed was Matthew Gannon, a Beirut-based CIA officer. Libyan intelligence agent Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was ultimately convicted of masterminding the attack.

To learn more about the history of Operation El Dorado Canyon and Lockerbie, I spoke with William Beeman, a Middle East expert and anthropology professor at University of Minnesota. The text that follows has been edited for length and clarity.

Can you summarize the political context in the 1980s that led up to the American bombing in Libya in 1986?

Well, Colonel Gadhafi was a very iconoclastic figure from the time he took power in 1969. He had been involved in supporting any number of terrorist organizations including the Irish Republican Army. In particular he was very upset about the fact that anti-Gadhafi forces -- Libyan ex-patriates -- had been operating in Europe. In retaliation, he funded the IRA and he claimed that this was payback for the Europeans that were allegedly fostering opposition to his own government. Gadhafi also claimed to be sponsoring the Red Army Faction [in Germany] and was generally considered to be a terrible gadfly to Europeans and to the United States. He was quite equal opportunity; he also supported Idi Amin in Uganda, and he declared himself the king of kings of all of Africa. So the United States under Reagan declared Libya to be the chief state supporter of terrorism in the 1980s.

What prompted the American bombing in 1986?

The main thing that touched off the incident was the bombing of the La Belle night club in West Berlin in April 1986. There were a small number of people killed and a large number injured. The United States had an absolute smoking gun. The Libyan agents involved in the attack were operating out of East Germany. During the dregs of the Cold War, there was kind of a perfect storm -- East Germany and the communists were involved with the Libyans and they were bombing a night club in West Berlin. So the story was, "Evil Gadhafi and evil communists plot to bomb Westerners." Later on it turned out to be true that the Stasi had been involved, but we didn't know about this for a long time, until after the reunification of Germany. A week after the bombing, Reagan ordered the strike on Libya.

Further: "The story is -- and we don't know this is true for sure -- that he was warned in advance by either the the prime minister of Malta or Prime Minister Craxi of Italy."

Why do I find it easy to believe that Craxi might have done so?

Dan Collins

Dan Collins is a dude who blogs. He used to blog elsewhere. Now he blogs here.

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