Volume 6, Number 1 · February 3, 1966
The Strange Trial of the Rosenbergs
By Herbert L. Packer
Invitation to an Inquest
by Walter Schneir, by Miriam Schneir
Doubleday, 467 pp., $5.95
There have been several books on the Rosenberg case, none of them very satisfactory and at least two (taking diametric views of the case) quite appallingly bad. Invitation to an Inquest is in another category altogether. Mr. and Mrs. Schneir have not only examined the record with care but, going beyond the record and exhibiting the most admirable tenacity, have uncovered significant facts not previously brought to light. The net effect of their researches is to cast considerable doubt on the veracity of Harry Gold and David Greenglass, the principal witnesses against the Rosenbergs, and on that of Max Elitcher, who supplied the only testimony directly linking Morton Sobell to the alleged Rosenberg spy ring. If the information now brought forward by Mr. and Mrs. Schneir had been used by the defense at the time of the trial, the result might have been different. And if their data had been marshalled when application was made for a new trial, some two years after the original trial and on the eve of the scheduled executions, it seems likely that a new trial would have been granted. To say this much, however, is not to say that the Rosenbergs and Sobell were unfairly convicted or that they were innocent of the charges against them. It is their failure to perceive this only superficially paradoxical distinction that deprives the Schneirs' work of what would otherwise be its strong claim to credibility.
Review, 2416 words
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