The Press, the Rosenbergs, and the Cold War

This book is a study of cold war agenda setting in relation to the Julius and Ethel Rosenberg spy case. Its primary interest is with press coverage of the case from 1950 to 1953, although the historical focus of the case extends before and beyond those years. The purpose of the book is not to debate the Rosenbergs’ guilt or innocence, but rather to provide a fresh view of the case in its most political terms: news coverage filtered through the dynamics of cold war patriotism. A large sample of U.S. and foreign newspapers and magazines was monitored to determine if the Rosenbergs were victims of sensational pretrial and during-trial newspaper publicity. Neville also determines if the press reported on the claims of a U.S. left-wing newspaper, the National Guardian, that the Rosenbergs were framed by the U.S. government with the complicity of the news media. His conclusions question whether the mainstream press and news media ignore issues of justice for radicals in time of war and political crisis.