Public Burning (42 page)
PRIS
:Â Â Â Â Â Specifically, in relation to this case, the Government itself, after the trial, conceded that: “Greenglass's diagrams have a theatrical quality,” and because he was not a scientist, “must have counted for little.”
PRES
:Â Â Â Â Â By immeasurably increasing the chances of atomic war, the Rosenbergs may have condemned to death tens of millions of innocent people all over the world.
PRIS
:Â Â Â Â Â It is perfectly clear that such valueless information could have had little effectiveness “in putting into the hands of the Russians the A-bomb,” even had they not possessed the “secret.”
PRES
:Â Â Â Â Â By their act these two individuals have in fact betrayed the cause of freedom for which free men are fighting and dying at this very hour.
PRIS
:Â Â Â Â Â
(
a bit desperately
) We submitted documentary evidence to show that David Greenglass, trapped by his own misdeeds, hysterical with fear for his own life and that of Ruth, his wife, fell back on his lifelong habit of lying, exploited by his shrewd-minded and equally guilty wife, to fabricate, bit by bit, a
monstrous
tale that has sent us,
his own flesh and blood
, down a long and terrible path toward death!
PRES
:Â Â Â Â Â
(
oblivious to this outburst
) When democracy's enemies.
PRIS
:     We ask you, Mr⦠President, the civilized head of a civilized nation, to judge our plea with reason and humanityâand remember! we are a
father and a mother!
PRES
:Â Â Â Â Â
(
pressing on
) When democracy's enemies have been judged guilty of a crime as horrible as that of which the Rosenbergs were convicted.
PRIS
:Â Â Â Â Â
(
rising to full power
) Our sentences violate truth and the instincts of civilized humanity! The compassion of men sees us as victims caught in the terrible interplay of clashing ideologies and feverish international enmities⦠As Commander-in-Chief of the European theater, you had ample opportunity to witness the wanton and hideous tortures that such a policy of vengeance had wreaked upon vast multitudes of guiltless victims⦠Today, while these ghastly mass butchers, these obscene racists, are graciously receiving the benefits of mercy and in many instances being reinstated in public office, the great democratic United States is proposing the savage destruction of a small unoffending Jewish family, whose guilt is seriously doubted throughout the length and breadth of the civilized world! We appeal to your mind and conscience, Mr⦠President, to take counsel with the reasons of others and with the deepest human feelings that treasure life and shun its takingâ¦
The facts of our case have touched the conscience of civilization!
PRES
:Â Â Â Â Â
(
momentarily weakening
) My only concern is in theâ¦area of statecraft⦠The
effect
of the action.
PRIS
:Â Â Â Â Â
(
seizing on this
) If you will not hear our voices, hear the voices of the world! Hear the great and humble for the sake of America!
VOICES
:Â Â Â Â Â
(
rolling in behind the
PRISONER'S
last speech, overlapping each other, slowly augmenting in volume, then diminishing when the
PRESIDENT
interrupts
) We the undersigned rabbis and religious leaders of the Holy Land⦠Our committee is today comprised of men who you know, Mr⦠President, to be of the highest character⦠Will you express in my name the deep revulsion⦠I, an Orthodox rabbi⦠I had the honor to fight with the American Armyâ¦spiritual and executive leaders in their respective denominations⦠Is it customary for spies to be paid in wristwatches and console tables?â¦utterly disproportionate to the offense for this couple with two young children to be put toâ¦sinister threat of fascism and a new world warâ¦Mr⦠President, all of us, as pastorsâ¦aggressive pressure of the anti-Semites, Negro-hatersâ¦hope thus to honor and render justice to the memory of my brother Bartolomeo Vanzetti, who before dying saidâ¦indeed regrettableâ¦profoundly moved by the death sentence pronounced on Ethel andâ¦the extreme severityâ¦a tragic event for all lovers of theâ¦when conducted in a climate of fear and suspicion which breeds reckless and irresponsible action⦠I cannot but deplore⦠My conscience compels meâ¦without precedent in the West⦠I pray the Lord and hope the cruel sentence passedâ¦contemplate with horrorâ¦obtained during a period of mounting hysteriaâ¦never before imposed⦠Together with nearly twenty-three hundred other clergymenâ¦cruel, inhuman and barbaric in the extremeâ¦in the name of God and the quality of mercyâ¦your deep religious feeling and your awareness of the spirit of good within youâ¦in the very name of our common ideal of justice and generosity which we derive from the Bibleâ¦political murderâ¦to use the power which the Constitution of the United States gives youâ¦urge you to commuteâ¦in the spirit of love which casts out fearâ¦your prerogative of clemencyâ¦to reconsider your refusalâ¦this savage verdictâ¦would it not be embarrassing if, after the execution of the Rosenbergs, it could be shown that.
PRES
:Â Â Â Â Â
(
interrupting fiercely
,
VOICES
fading
) I am not unmindful of the fact that this case has aroused grave concern both here and abroad in the minds of serious people.
PRIS
:Â Â Â Â Â (
to the
PRESIDENT
,
trying to hang on to the momentum
) The guilt in this case, if we die, will be America's! The shame, if we die, will dishonor this generation!
PRES
:Â Â Â Â Â
(
as though calling out to the vanished
VOICES
) But what you did
not
suggest was the need for considering the known convictions of Communist leaders that free governmentsâand especially the American governmentâare notoriously weak and fearful
PRIS
:     Mr⦠Presidentâ
PRES
:
     â¦and that consequently subversive and other kinds of activities can be conducted against them with no real fear of dire punishment on the part of the perpetrator.
PRIS
:Â Â Â Â Â
(
urgently, almost amorously
) Take counsel with your good wife; of statesmen there are enough and to spare.
PRES
:Â Â Â Â Â It is, of course, important to the Communists to have this contention sustained and justified.
PRIS
:
     Take counsel with the mother of your only son; her heart which understands my grief so well and my longing to see my sons grown to manhood like her own.
PRES
:Â Â Â Â Â In the present case, they have even stooped to dragging in young and innocent children in order to serve their own purpose!
PRIS
:Â Â Â Â Â
â¦with loving husband at my side even as you are at hers!
PRES
:Â Â Â Â Â The action of these people has exposed to greater danger literally millions of our citizens.
PRIS
:Â Â Â Â Â Her heart must plead my cause with grace and with felicity!
PRES
:Â Â Â Â Â Within the last two days, the Supreme Court, convened in a special session, has again reviewed a further point which one of the Justices felt the Rosenbergs should have an opportunity to present.
PRIS
:Â Â Â Â Â (
on her knees, pleading
) I approach you solely on the basis of mercy.
PRES
:Â Â Â Â Â
(
edging away
) This morning the Supreme Court ruled that there was no substance to this point.
PRIS
:Â Â Â Â Â
â¦and earnestly beseech you to let this quality sway you rather than any narrow judicial concern, which is after all the province of the courts.
PRES
:Â Â Â Â Â The legal processes of democracy have been marshaled to their maximum strength to protect the lives of convicted spies.
PRIS
:Â Â Â Â Â
It is rather the province of the affectionate grandfather.
PRES
:Â Â Â Â Â
Accordingly.
PRIS
:Â Â Â Â Â
â¦the sensitive artist, the devoutly religious man.
PRES
:Â Â Â Â Â
Accordingly, only the most extraordinary circumstances.
PRIS
:Â Â Â Â Â
â¦that I would enter⦠I ask this man.
PRES
:
     Only the most extraordinary circumstances would warrant executive intervention in the case.
PRIS
:
     I ask this man, himself no stranger to the humanities, what man there is that history has acclaimed great, whose greatness has not been measured in terms of his goodness? Truly.
PRES
:
     If any other different situation arises that makes it look like a question of policy, of state policy, they can bring it back to me⦠As of now.
PRIS
:Â Â Â Â Â Truly, the stories of Christ, of Moses, of Gandhi hold more sheer wonderment and spiritual treasure than all the conquests of Napoleon!
PRES
:
     As of now, my decision was made purely on the basis of what the courts had found in all this long discussion.
PRIS
:Â Â Â Â Â
We do not want to die!
PRES
:Â Â Â Â Â
We are a nation under law and our affairs are governed by the just exercise of these laws.
PRIS
:Â Â Â Â Â
We are young, too young, for death⦠We wish to live!
PRES
:Â Â Â Â Â
The courts have done for these people everything possible.
PRIS
:Â Â Â Â Â
We told you the truth! We are innocent of this crime!
PRES
:Â Â Â Â Â
Have adjudged them guilty and the sentence just.
PRIS
:Â Â Â Â Â
Innocent!
PRES
:Â Â Â Â Â
Given them every right.
PRIS
:Â Â Â Â Â
Pleaseâ!
PRES
:Â Â Â Â Â
I will not intervene in this matter.
PRIS
:Â Â Â Â Â
We do not want to die!
PRES
:Â Â Â Â Â
I will not intervene.
PART THREE: FRIDAY AFTERNOON
15
.
Iron Butt Gets Smeared Again
I left the President out on Harry's Balcony, delivering to the sunburnt and straw-hatted crowds below his “Statement Declining to Intervene on Behalf of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg,” to return to my office, taking as circuitous a route out of the White House as I thought I could get away withâwhen was the General ever going to show me around this place, I wondered? What I'd been allowed to see of the White House, I'd liked: it was roomy and comfortable, if maybe too public, and it had a lot of interesting corners. I especially liked the Lincoln Sitting Room. There was an old chair I had that would look good in there. I'd never been up to the Solarium where Ike held his stag parties, but I hoped it was like my bell tower back in Whittier, only fancier.
On the way out, I passed Eisenhower's valet polishing up the Presidential golf clubs for an afternoon on the course. Or maybe to pot around on the White House lawn when the mobs had left. Familiar sight this spring: the Man of Destiny out there in his white sport shirt, tan cap, and gray slacks, whopping golf balls around the grounds like popcorn, like snow-white Eisenhoppers, while his faithful old Army sergeant, now his valet, chased about after them with a yellow bag, reminding old-timers of Woodrow Wilson's shepherd out on the White House pasture gathering up sacksful of scattered wool tufts and dung for the vegetable garden. His valet did everything for him: helped him on with his clothes, put paste on his toothbrush, buttoned his fly, ironed his shoe strings, probably even wiped his ass when he shat, if he even did that for himself.
A tremendous cheer exploded out on the White House lawn. He'd got to the main part. This, I thought, was what made Eisenhower great, this was why he was our President: he knew how to kill. He knew how to deal with valets and orderlies, and he knew how to kill. “My only concern is in the area of statecraft⦔ Just close the switches, smile like a monkey, then go out and swat a few. Of course, it was easy for him, growing up in a town that had had Wild Bill Hickok for its sheriff, he probably had it in his blood. I had naturally put myself in his position: could
I
have refused them clemency? I wasn't sure. I knew what the national consensus was and I rarely bucked it, but I could see Grandma Milhous shaking her dark head solemnly from her rocking chair, Mom watching me wistfully from a distant room, softening my heart. But then, as I held out my hand to them in reconciliation, there was Dad, rearing up red-faced in front of me with the strap in his hand. Certainly, no matter what choice I made, I would have been troubled and depressed by the decision long before and long after. Eisenhower merely weighed the effects their deaths would likely have out in the world (mainly positive, he supposed: show them we mean business), affably declined to intervene, and departed for the golf links. Nothing more complicated than sizing up the distance of an approach shot and choosing the right iron. And everybody loved him for this. Even Ethel Rosenberg, about to be wired up and wiped out by the callous sonuvabitch, saw him as “an affectionate grandfather” and “sensitive artist.” The Supreme Court had just warned him, I'd read it myself: “Vacating this stay is not to be construed as endorsing the wisdom or appropriateness to this case of a death sentence”âall but a plea for mercy, but the sensitive artist, with a blank happy smile, ignored it. He probably never even read it. Well, he'd been hit by lightning himself, after all, maybe he underestimated the effects.