The Rosenbergs’ Execution (June 19, 1953)

So why didn’t Julius save Ethel? The FBI was right: he had recruited spies, so he could easily have given names and probably saved her life, and very possibly his own, too.

“Dad’s unwillingness to rat out his fellows wasn’t about him wanting to be a soldier of Stalin,” says Michael. “It was more personal. These were his friends! My father was not going to cooperate with the government, and that’s why they arrested my mother. So now he’s going to turn around and say, ‘OK, I’m going to save my wife by ratting out my friends?’ No! He had a naive belief that the American justice system was going to work because half the case against him was a pack of lies, so he thought he could deny everything and save them both.” Almost until the end, Julius believed that they wouldn’t go to the chair. The government and FBI hoped that, too. They never wanted to kill this young mother and father – they wanted names. After Ethel was killed, the then deputy attorney general William Rogers said, “She called our bluff.”

Then there’s the question that baffled officials at the time, and has become the defining mystery about her: why did Ethel choose to stay silent and die with Julius, over staying with her children? We know she was deeply in love with her husband, and her letters to him during their imprisonment are filled with her longing to “lift my willing lips to yours”. But they are also full of her anxiety about the boys. Yet she said nothing.

The Guardian

Astrology never lies, right? Their final moment of life shows the truth of this statement. There are two inconjuncts, one for him and one for her.

Mercury Inconjunct Ascendant

You are likely to have some problems, but not serious ones, in communicating with others. The problem is that people’s first impression of you may not fi in with what you say or your manner of thinking and speaking. People tend to hear what they expect to hear, and they may not listen to you as carefully as they should. So you will have to be as clear as possible and insist that others listen to what you are really saying. If others do not understand you, it is up to you to set them straight.

Venus Inconjunct Midheaven

You are likely to feel that there is a conflict between what you ought to do in a particular situation and what would be acceptable to the people around you…Later in life, you may see your job, career or profession as a part of your life that is quite separate from your personal relationships with loved ones. This may cause you to neglect one area in favor of the other, instead of trying to create a balance between them.

Conclusion

Ethel’s role of supporting her husband ‘in sickness and in health’ through thick or thin may have been the reason she chose death instead of letting her husband rat out his friends. They both believed that justice would not allow such a travesty. Oh, well, America in the early 1950’s was a very scared country. Communism was the great equalizer and Capitalism was at stake. Besides, the Korean War was three years old by this time, and just about to end in a draw. (And we are still suffering the consequences of that cessation of hostilities without a resolution.)

The lives of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg were taken by their country to prove to other Communist spies that they should stop. Look how well that worked!