Repellent Rosenberg Read

I write to protest the Bulletin’s dereliction of journalistic duty in publishing Carrie Compton’s “Correcting the Record” (winter 2016). I can understand why Michael Meeropol ’64 continues to minimize the guilt of his parents. But the Bulletin has some duty to the truth: Both Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were traitors in the service of one of the most evil regimes that has ever disgraced human history. 

At a minimum, any piece on the Rosenbergs should at least mention the extensive work by Ronald Radosh, authoritative among case experts, in which he argues both that Ethel Rosenberg was guilty of treason and that she should not have been executed. Compton’s stenography of the Meeropols’ whitewash disgraces journalism, the Bulletin, and Swarthmore College and grossly misinforms alumni credulous enough to take her account for an approximation of the truth. I hope the Bulletin will make some substantial acknowledgment of its failure to meet minimum standards of journalism in a subsequent issue.

—David Randall ’93, Brooklyn, N.Y.