19 June—Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were electrocuted in Sing Sing 72 years ago today, Juneteenth 1953. They had been convicted in federal court under the Espionage Act of 1917 of conspiracy to commit espionage for passing atomic secrets to the Soviet Union during and after World War II. To this day, they’re the only people to have been executed in the United States for espionage during peacetime.

The Rosenbergs’ execution was carried out—executed, as it were—at the celebrated New York State correctional facility 30 miles up the Hudson River from New York City in Ossining that gave rise to the term “up the river” for serving time in prison because—believe it or not—the fed at the time didn’t have its own execution facilities and Sing Sing was at the forefront of electrocution. New York State has since banned the death penalty.

Julius Rosenberg had in fact passed atomic secrets to the Soviets. But Ethel’s guilt is doubtful and her conviction was based in large part on perjured testimony of her brother and sister-in-law, David and Ruth Greenglass, themselves low-level atom spies. A match made in heaven. David’s perjury got him a 15-year sentence of which he served only nine-and-a-half years and Ruth wasn’t even charged.

After David Greenglass served his short time up the river in the Lewisburg federal pen in Pennsylvania, he and Ruth changed their names and lived a long, shameful life together. Ruth died in 2008 at 83 and David died in 2014 at 92.

FBI boss J. Edgar Hoover had recommended a 30-year sentence for Ethel Rosenberg rather than the death penalty. But the prosecutors, including Trump’s scummy mentor Roy Cohn, recommended the death penalty. And that’s what Judge Irving Kaufman gave Julius and Ethel.

And the RSD 20 budget passed yesterday . . .