2021年经济学人 司法的抉择--夫妇因间谍罪被处以死刑(1)（在线收听）

On June 19th 1953, just minutes after the execution of her husband, Julius, for espionage, 37-year-old Ethel Rosenberg was strapped into the electric chair in Sing Sing prison in New York.

1953年6月19日，37岁的埃塞尔·罗森伯格的丈夫朱利叶斯因间谍罪被处以死刑，几分钟后，她被绑在纽约新新监狱的电椅上。

The first three charges of electricity failed to kill her, but after two more she was dead, smoke rising from her head, the only woman executed in America in the 20th century for a crime other than murder.

前三次电击都没能杀死她，但再电击了两次之后，她死了，浓烟从她的头上冒出。她是20世纪美国唯一一名因谋杀以外的罪名被处死的女性。

Thousands of people filled the streets around the chapel in Brooklyn where the couple's funeral was held.

数千人聚集在布鲁克林举行葬礼的小教堂周围的街道上。

There were demonstrations across Europe, especially in France.

欧洲各地都发生了示威游行，尤其是法国。

For many on the left, the execution of the Rosenbergs on charges of spying for the Soviet Union — and passing on atomic secrets — was analogous to the Dreyfus affair in France half a century earlier.

对许多左翼人士来说，罗森伯格夫妇因被指控为苏联从事间谍活动并传递原子机密而被处决，类似于半个世纪前法国的德雷福斯事件。

America had sent an idealistic Jewish couple with two young children to their deaths on trumped-up evidence.

美国以捏造的证据将一对理想主义犹太夫妇和两个年幼的孩子送上了死亡之路。

The doomed pair protested their innocence until the end.

这对在劫难逃的夫妇直到最后都坚称自己是无辜的。

In the case of Julius, this was never a convincing narrative.

在朱利叶斯的案件中，这番陈述从未令人信服。

He had recruited his brother-in-law, David Greenglass, who was employed on the top-secret Manhattan project at Los Alamos, to the Soviet cause;

朱利叶斯雇佣他的妻弟大卫·格林格拉斯为苏联事业效力，后者曾受聘参与洛斯阿拉莫斯的绝密曼哈顿计划；

Greenglass in turn was linked to Harry Gold, the courier for Klaus Fuchs (a much more significant source of intelligence for the Kremlin).

而格林格拉斯则与克劳斯·富克斯(克里姆林宫更重要的情报来源)的信使哈里·戈尔德有联系。

Those latter three all confessed to spying.

后来三人都承认从事间谍活动。

But the evidence against Ethel was far weaker, and at the trial was based primarily on perjured testimony from Greenglass, who had secured a plea deal, and his wife, Ruth.

但对埃塞尔不利的证据要脆弱得多，在审判中主要是基于格林格拉斯和他的妻子露丝的伪证，而格林格拉斯已经达成了认罪协议。

Greenglass later admitted his crucial testimony — that Ethel had typed up notes on American nuclear-weapons technology in the Rosenbergs' flat in September 1945 — had been false.

格林格拉斯后来承认，他的关键证词——埃塞尔1945年9月在罗森伯格的公寓里打印出了关于美国核武器技术的笔记——是假的。

Ruth, who escaped even a prison sentence, was probably the typist.

露丝很可能就是那个打字员，而她甚至免受了牢狱之灾。

There have been many books about the Rosenberg affair.

关于罗森博格事件的书有很多。

J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI's director, called theirs the trial of the century.

联邦调查局局长埃德加·胡佛称这是一场世纪审判。

But Anne Sebba's biography of Ethel is the first for 30 years.

然而，安妮·塞芭的埃塞尔传记是30年来的第一部。

She places great weight on the release in 2015, after Greenglass's death, of grand jury testimony including his original statement that Ethel had no involvement in the conspiracy.

她非常重视2015年格林格拉斯死后大陪审团的证词，其中包括埃塞尔没有参与阴谋的最初陈述。

With access to an extensive archive of Ethel's letters, many movingly written from prison — and drawing together interviews with surviving witnesses, including the Rosenbergs' two sons, Michael and Robert —

通过查阅大量埃塞尔的信件，其中许多是在监狱里写的感人信件，以及对罗森伯格夫妇的两个儿子迈克尔和罗伯特等在世证人的采访，

Ms Sebba tells a compelling story of love, betrayal, misplaced idealism and brutal legal and political manoeuvring.

塞巴女士讲述了一个关于爱情、背叛、错位的理想主义以及残酷的法律和政治操纵的引人注目的故事。