Had been it not for his sentencing of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg to dying by the electrical chair on April 5, 1951, Decide Irving Kaufman could be remembered for his accomplishments whereas serving as Chief Justice on the 2nd Circuit Courtroom of Appeals in New York Metropolis—a court docket, Martin J. Siegel writes in Judgment and Mercy: The Turbulent Life and Occasions of the Decide who Condemned the Rosenbergs, “typically regarded as the second most distinguished and vital in the USA after the Supreme Courtroom.” Certainly, Kaufman would have been often known as a champion of the First Modification to the Structure and the liberty of the press. He was a jurist seen by the general public and described by authorized counsel Floyd Abrams (now the topic of a PBS documentary) as “some of the ardent eloquent articulators of the underlying that means” of the First Modification, who had “an abiding perception within the significance of free expression for everyone.”
Sadly, that was to not be. Towering over a lot of his accomplishments and authorized readings, it was the dying sentence he handed to the Rosenbergs that has stood out over time. Kaufman feared, as he usually mentioned, that the New York Occasions would declare in his obituary one thing just like the “Decide who gave the Rosenbergs a dying sentence has died.” He was not improper. When he died in 1992, the Occasions obituary’s very first sentence learn “Decide Irving R. Kaufman, who gained nationwide consideration in 1951 because the choose who sentenced Julius and Ethel Rosenberg to the electrical chair … died on Saturday night time within the Mount Sinai Medical Middle.”
Martin J. Siegel’s wonderful new biography serves as a corrective to those that solely know of Kaufman for his Rosenberg resolution. That Siegel was one in all Decide Kaufman’s final clerks and a lawyer provides to his understanding of Kaufman’s story. Kaufman, who grew up the son of poor Jewish immigrants on the Decrease East Facet of New York, rose from poverty to wealth and energy achieved by way of laborious work, driving ambition, and intelligence. He took little day without work, working in his workplace late into the night and infrequently throughout weekends. His household suffered due to it.
Love of Nation
Kaufman’s rise from a comparatively poor immigrant standing to wealth, affect, and energy is the story of many immigrants. Kaufman beloved America, the life it allowed him to reside, and the accomplishments he was capable of obtain, regardless of his dad and mom’ humble beginnings. Not like most of his friends, Kaufman didn’t go to New York Metropolis’s free establishment, The Metropolis School of New York. That call allowed him to flee the contacts he undoubtedly would have had with the big contingent of Jewish scholar left-wingers, whose affect and presence on the campus was most noticeable. As a substitute, he selected to go to the Catholic school at Fordham College, after which its regulation faculty, which was within the Woolworth Constructing in Manhattan, close to the courts.
He virtually instantly made his mark, first by exposing a incapacity fraud racket, and subsequent, by exposing super fraud in a small drug firm that purchased the agency McKesson and Robins, whose revered chief, F. Donald Coster, was courted by some Republicans as being presidential materials. Diligent work led Kaufman to reveal an ideal con, displaying Coster to truly be a widely known swindler named Philip Musica, who had mysteriously disappeared from view after two convictions many years earlier. Kaufman’s authorized work quickly led to the illustration of Jews who had begun their life as poor immigrants, and who had risen to wealth and standing. Probably the most distinguished was Sam Newhouse, the publishing and media tycoon, and one other was the nation’s most celebrated comic and the primary TV star within the new media of the 50s, Milton Berle.
In non-public follow, Kaufman sought out well-known authorities figures who grew to become buddies and proved useful in his ascent, resembling Truman’s Lawyer Basic, Tom Clark, and the long-serving director of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover, to whom he wrote, “in my view, you’re the biggest public servant of our time.” Via these and different ties, in addition to his strong repute for his authorized work, he obtained wonderful suggestions. In 1949, President Truman appointed him to New York’s Southern District Federal district court docket, the place he served till 1961, when President John F. Kennedy appointed him to the Second Circuit, as soon as typically thought crucial venue subsequent to the Supreme Courtroom, and the place he was to reside for 3 many years till his dying.
It was on this capability that he was chosen to be the presiding justice within the Chilly Warfare espionage case of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who have been described within the newspapers as spies for the Soviet Union. The Rosenberg’s espionage gave Stalin the “secret” of the atomic bomb and was dubbed “the trial of the century” by J. Edgar Hoover. Each main paper and information broadcast led their entrance pages and opening tales with protection of the trial.
With the discharge of the once-secret Soviet decrypts referred to as The Venona Recordsdata in 1995, the hotly contested guilt of the Rosenbergs was absolutely established, though some continued to boost doubts as as to whether Ethel Rosenberg was additionally a participant in her husband’s spy ring. Many books and articles have appeared on the case and the one I co-authored with Joyce Milton, The Rosenberg File (1983), is credited with providing convincing proof of their guilt, thereby difficult the long-standing perception of many on the left that they have been framed up by the FBI. As Siegel writes, “The Rosenberg case deeply divided Individuals, infected Chilly Warfare passions everywhere in the world, and nonetheless charges among the many most controversial episodes in American regulation.”
It has lengthy been identified that Decide Kaufman participated in extremely uncommon though not technically unlawful “ex parte communication” with the prosecution on the query of whether or not Kaufman ought to proclaim a sentence of dying after they have been discovered responsible. Siegel reveals that earlier than the trial started, Kaufman already held “secret back-channel discussions with the prosecution group, one thing he continued all through the trial.” These have been particularly held between Kaufman and his pal assistant prosecutor Roy Cohn, who in later years preferred to painting himself because the lead Justice Division prosecuting lawyer, which was not true.
Siegel concludes that the trial was truthful, though Decide Kaufman clearly had prejudged the case and believed they have been responsible earlier than the trial even started. And but he by no means interfered with their counsel’s protection technique. He additionally was appropriate in how he framed the regulation to the jury, though he concludes that Kaufman was too desirous to intervene in ways in which helped the prosecution, resembling cross-examining the Rosenbergs himself.
The eventual sentencing, a lot to his consternation, didn’t result in an appointment to the Supreme Courtroom, which was his lifelong private aim. On the sentencing, Kaufman started by telling the convicted couple that their crime was “worse than homicide.” He proceeded to inform them he thought-about their actions as having precipitated the “Communist aggression in Korea, with the ensuing casualties exceeding 50,000 and who is aware of however that thousands and thousands extra of harmless individuals might pay the worth of your treason.”
Martin J. Siegel has written a sterling biography that evaluates Kaufman pretty and precisely, and Decide Kaufman’s legacy might now be evaluated anew by these prepared to take action.
Siegel writes, upon listening to that he was giving them a dying sentence, there was “an audible gasp within the courtroom.” Nevertheless, as one who sat within the public seats with different common residents, I solely personally bear in mind being “shocked and repulsed.” I agree with Siegel’s judgment that blaming the couple “for the Korean battle was ludicrous, and his declare that they’d imperiled the very existence of the USA as exaggerated verging on the apocalyptic. Certainly, Justice Felix Frankfurter put it nicely when he wrote that the Rosenbergs had been ‘tried for conspiracy and convicted for treason.’”
Siegel factors to a “tangled complicated of motives” to clarify Kaufman’s actions through the trial and his animus towards the Rosenbergs. There was the context that the trial happened through the Chilly Warfare with the nation awash with anti-communism and worry of communists. On a deeper degree, Kaufman was a patriot who beloved America and believed it had given him and immigrants like his household unbelievable alternatives. He was hostile to the Rosenbergs, since they too got here from the identical background, but eschewed the nation by embracing communism and giving the USSR our army secrets and techniques.
The second a part of Siegel’s biography relates how after his function in presiding over and granting the dying sentence to the Rosenbergs, Kaufman—a powerful liberal anti-Communist typical of many intellectuals of that period—grew to become a hero to the very liberal and left-wing people whose politics he most certainly personally despised. Nevertheless, Kaufman, who dominated to let Beatle John Lennon keep in America and who praised Lennon’s love for the USA, gave the youthful technology a reasonably totally different perspective of himself.
Advocate of the First Modification
He additionally grew to become a choose dedicated to freedom of the press, even when others sought to stop newspaper reporters from writing issues that might show dangerous to the nation’s pursuits, particularly in international coverage. Kaufman grew to become a favourite of the editorial board of The New York Occasions. His ruling determined the Pentagon Papers case in favor of the paper and in opposition to the US Authorities through the Nixon administration, which sought to restrain its publication. (The Supreme Courtroom adopted the Second Circuit by permitting their publication in a 6-3 resolution.)
One of many main revelations in his e-book is the cherished relationship of Kaufman to the writer of the New York Occasions, Arthur Ochs (Punch) Sulzberger, and its editorial board, whose editor-in-chief, A. M. (Abe) Rosenthal, bent over backward to court docket the Decide and to see that nothing they printed offended him. As a part of the package deal, Kaufman was allowed to frequently write editorial (later referred to as op-eds) contributions greater than as soon as, whereas common residents have been restricted within the quantity they may contribute. Kaufman additionally printed at the very least twelve articles within the New York Occasions Journal over time, itself additionally extremely uncommon.
My very own expertise confirms the paper’s favoritism to Kaufman. In 1979, Sol Stern and I wrote a canopy story outlining my conclusion that the Rosenbergs have been responsible, that appeared in The New Republic journal. That article was meant for the New York Occasions Journal, and had been accepted, edited, and readied for print by its editor, Ed Klein. The paper paid for all our analysis and journey, in addition to a good-looking payment upon completion.
Every week earlier than it was scheduled, Klein referred to as us into his workplace and instructed us it might not seem, as a result of it had been spiked by none aside from the paper’s Government Editor, Abe Rosenthal. He defined that Kaufman’s Courtroom frequently heard instances regarding freedom of the press that the Occasions was concerned in, and the paper couldn’t afford to publish any controversial article concerning the Rosenberg case which Rosenthal thought would offend Kaufman. He didn’t wish to danger anger from Kaufman arising from the revelation that through the trial, he frequently met with the prosecution in addition to secretly conferring with them about giving the Rosenbergs the dying sentence.
But, there isn’t a doubt that Kaufman’s place on civil liberties was real, since he knew that it might most certainly hassle a lot of these he had befriended over time, like Roy Cohn and J. Edgar Hoover. In a single resolution, Kaufman dominated in favor of two anti-Vietnam Warfare protestors, public faculty lecturers who whereas on the job, took a stance that made their non-public views identified to workers and college students. Kaufman said, “To compel an individual to talk what just isn’t in his thoughts offends the very ideas of tolerance and understanding which for therefore lengthy have been the muse of our nice land.” None aside from Ruth Bader Ginsburg, then a regulation professor at Columbia College Legislation Faculty, wrote Kaufman that his phrases have been a “shining instance of how the nice choose thinks and acts.”
Years later, regardless of Kaufman’s liberal positions, his pal Lawyer Basic Ed Meese organized for Kaufman to obtain the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Ronald Reagan in alternate for Kaufman agreeing to develop into part-time on the Second Circuit court docket and to open up a seat that Reagan might fill. This motion aggravated one in all Kaufman’s regulation clerks, Andrew Klein, who Siegel quotes as saying, “It was a really unhappy chapter for all of us. … In the event you have been a very good liberal Democrat, you didn’t wish to be manipulated by Ed Meese.”
Legacy
After the Rosenberg’s sons, Michael and Robert Meeropol had begun a well-publicized marketing campaign to exonerate their dad and mom, Kaufman was compelled to desert plans to present a graduation speech at Pomona School in Claremont, California, as a result of the administration feared demonstrations towards his presence.
The New York Occasions Journal, nevertheless, gave Kaufman its pages to deal with the school’s resolution. Complaining of a “persevering with sample of harassment” and a “new spirit of intolerance” on campuses— which at present, after all, we’ve been fairly acquainted with—Kaufman addressed how upset he was that now he was judged on one resolution alone, that of giving the dying sentence to the Rosenbergs. “I felt it unlucky, if not unfair,” he wrote, “that these previous points ought to have an effect on an invite to talk at present, for within the intervening years, I had written selections in … instances involving civil rights, faculty desegregation, jail reform, legal madness exams, conscientious objection, and freedom of expression.” In different phrases, selections that the very left college students protesting him undoubtedly favored. As soon as once more, nevertheless, the Occasions’ editors got here to his protection, stating in an editorial that he had an “exemplary” file, and after twenty-five years, “it’s time to finish the vendetta towards him.”
Regardless of that vendetta persevering with till Kaufman’s dying, Siegel rightfully concludes that in a single sense, Kaufman had succeeded past his earliest desires; “he crafted a very spectacular model of the basic American dream,” and as a jurist, his most vital selections “improved life for a lot of, expanded private liberty, and infused justice with actual compassion.” That the one motion—his resolution to have the Rosenbergs put to dying by the electrical chair—grew to become the one act that to most individuals outlined his life, is maybe each unfair and unhappy. It was, as Siegel writes, “a shadow he might by no means outrun.” Fortunately, Martin J. Siegel has written a sterling biography that evaluates Kaufman pretty and precisely, and Decide Kaufman’s legacy might now be evaluated anew by these prepared to take action.
