Editor’s note: Robert Meeropol, executive director of the Rosenberg Fund for Children, talks about his recently published memoir An Execution in the Family, the 50th anniversary of the execution of his parents, Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, and the relevance of defending civil rights and liberties. The Rosenberg Fund for Children provides for the educational and emotional needs of children of targeted progressive activists, and youth who are targeted activists themselves.

PA: Some people who were active in the 1950s had a strong reaction to An Execution in the Family, without having read the book. Why did you decide to take a chance like this?

RM: First, I see this book as the story of the Rosenberg Fund for Children (RFC). It’s really the story of how I survived what happened to me in my childhood, how I ultimately grew up. My entire life experience led to my starting the RFC and what that is all about. Ultimately, I’m a shameless promoter of the RFC, and I thought the RFC would benefit from this story being told. I felt that the 50th anniversary was the best milestone at which to tell it.

I also thought that the RFC had accomplished enough that I was telling a story of achievement rather than one of potential. I couldn’t have told this story 10 years ago, on the 40th anniversary because we were going in the right direction, but we weren’t there yet.

The other thing is that there’s something about an anniversary of this nature that makes you want to reflect on what it all meant and what it means now. For me, it’s my personal story. I felt like I could tell the story of how my views evolved while placing them within a progressive political context.

I felt that the discussion of my parents’ case had degenerated into guilt versus innocence, and I didn’t even think that was the key question. The key question in my mind has been, “did they do the thing they were killed for?” They were killed for stealing the secret of the atomic bomb, and they didn’t do that. So what does that mean? Let’s focus on that.

Instead, we were talking about guilt or innocence, which I think muddied the waters and did not focus on the real question. I found that those who have actually read the book generally applaud what I’ve done.

PA: I’ve found that people who haven’t read the book but who have read something about it or skimmed through it have misconceptions. But when people hear what you actually say, they have a totally different reaction.

RM: It’s like one of the things that are really remarkable about the Venona transcriptions. They’re characterized all over the place, but they’re on the Internet – there are only 80 pages of them – anybody can read them. The remarkable thing is how different they actually are from what they’re characterized as.

PA: The RFC focuses on children and what they are going through?

RM: I also look at the motivation of the parents. I think this comes down to questions of purity. If the people that we want to support politically have to be pure, that becomes an argument for disengaging from the political process because no one’s pure. That, I think, is ultimately very destructive because when contradictions, when difficulties, when subtleties are exposed, what ends up happening is that people either throw their hands up in disgust and become uninvolved or … refuse to see there’s anything wrong.

I have this little mantra I sort of repeat to myself, “see shades of gray but act anyway.” In other words, grayness becomes an excuse for disengagement and that can’t be. I think those dissenters who are going to make it through the long haul, who are going to be able to change things are those that understand the subtleties and nuances and be able to navigate those waters without making dogmatic proclamations of truth.

One of the greatest advances in the 20th century, both politically and scientifically, has been an understanding of the limitations of our knowledge, of what we don’t know and the fact that we don’t know it all and we don’t understand it all. That is no reason not to be involved. We still have to muddle through the best we can and try to figure stuff out because we can’t leave the stage bare to the Bushes and the Ashcrofts.

A: You’ve talked about how your parents’ case is relevant today.

RM: I conceived of writing something about this in the year 2000 as I was contemplating the 50th anniversary. I actually wrote some essays that form little kernels of what’s in the book in the summer of 2000 and the early fall of 2000. But as the book evolved and time went on and September 11 happened, it seemed to me that the closer we got to the 50th anniversary the more June 19, 2003 began to feel like June 19, 1953. In those three years [2000-2003], we were so much closer to the 1950s than we had been. I felt that if you look at what the government, the media, the military, what various forces involved in promoting the ideology of the McCarthy period were doing, they were manipulating public fear. The fear then was that we were going to be overrun by the international communist conspiracy and the public reacted to that. This took place within a wartime framework: the Korean War. You put those two things together and you have the kind of thing that can happen during the McCarthy period.

And look what’s happened now: The Bush administration is manipulating public fears, and it’s created a wartime context, a never-ending wartime context, to fuel those fears. You then have an enemy. In that case it was domestic Communists. Now it’s the international terrorist conspiracy.

Those of us on the left find ourselves trying to defend the civil liberties of the immigrant community. Many times we end up defending people, whose politics are so utterly foreign to us that it can be difficult. At the same time it’s easier in the sense that it’s clearer that we’re not just taking stances in our own self-interest. We’re taking stances based on principle.

PA: In a similar vein, when Cuba recently executed several people convicted of treason, the Communist Party USA issued a statement, which included opposition to the death penalty, some people thought that should have been left out of the statement out of respect for Cuba. But how can you oppose the death penalty on principal and not oppose it in all cases?

RM: That’s the exact kind of subtleties I’m talking about. I don’t know if you’re familiar with Castro’s speeches in response to some stuff [Pastors for Peace head] Rev. Lucius Walker said. Castro talked at great length about how Pastors for Peace and Rev. Walker were supporters of the Cuban revolution, how he had a tremendous respect for Walker’s call to abolish the death penalty and it was something they were studying and they could receive such friendly criticism.

I totally agreed with Rev. Walker’s statement. I find the death penalty is just wrong. There’s no place for it in civilized society. If you feel that defending the Cuban revolution is defending even those actions that you think are wrong, then that’s a real problem. That will come back to haunt you.

For more information: see www.rfc.org or write to: Rosenberg Fund for Children, 116 Pleasant Street, Suite 3312, Easthampton, MA 01027