Draft Presidential Statement Rejecting Clemency for Julius and Ethel Rosenberg (1953)

Date: January 30, 1953

Created By: Tom Stephens and Psychological Stategy Board

Original or Replica: Original

Era: The Presidency, The Rosenberg Case

Collection: Eisenhower Presidential Library

Citations: DDE’s Papers as President, Administration Series, Box 32, Rosenberg Case Statement; NAID #12572380

This document contains a proposed presidential statement concerning the clemency appeals of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, along with a January 30, 1953 White House memorandum forwarding the draft to Attorney General Herbert Brownell Jr. The statement had originally been prepared by the Psychological Strategy Board for President Harry S. Truman in December 1952 but was passed to the newly inaugurated Eisenhower administration for consideration.

The draft presents the case against granting clemency. It describes the Rosenbergs’ conviction for conspiring to provide highly secret atomic information to a foreign power as a betrayal that endangered the entire nation and potentially placed thousands of lives at risk. The statement emphasizes that the United States is a “nation under law” and argues that the Rosenbergs had received a fair trial and extensive opportunities for judicial review. It concludes that no new evidence or mitigating circumstances justified overturning the sentences and that the president therefore had a duty not to set aside the verdict. A final paragraph proposing release of a Justice Department summary of the case is visibly crossed out on the draft. The document demonstrates how the incoming Eisenhower administration inherited both the Rosenberg clemency question and proposed arguments for publicly defending a denial of clemency.