Greenglass – The Brother

            A book was written about him called The Brother,

and that is how history records him.  He

was the brother of woman convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage. He was

well positioned to help the Soviets. At Los Alamos in the mid-1940s he had

access to the designs of a lens used in a deadly weapon that changed the course

of history.  In court, he turned against

his sister and said she was directly involved in committing espionage. This

person was sentenced to many years in prison, but his wife, also implicated in

the espionage, was not charged. She was free to raise their children. Who was

he?

            He was David Greenglass, and his sister was Ethel

Rosenberg who was electrocuted along with Julius Rosenberg for atomic

espionage. The Greenglasses like the Rosenbergs belonged to the Young Communist

League and adored Joseph Stalin and the Soviet Union. After Greenglass was

released from prison he took an assumed name and lived in obscurity. Then,

veteran Times reporter Sam Roberts tracked him down and persuaded him to give

an interview. Was Greenglass, who lived into his nineties, remorseful about

turning in his big sister? Not according to his reflections on the whole sordid

affair.  He related, "My wife says,

'Look, we're still alive.'" Yes. But not so his sister, Ethel. Should she

have been executed? That is a subject for another Kensington Minute. This

Kensington Minute does not represent the official position of the United States

government. Out here.