Treachery and betrayal
Ethel Rosenberg: A Cold War Tragedy
by Anne Sebba
Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 304 pages, £20
On a sultry summer’s evening in June 1953, a woman named Ethel Rosenberg was prepared for execu tion in the high-security Sing Sing prison in New York state. She displayed a steely composure as she was strapped into the electric chair, closing her eyes as the electrodes were attached to her head. She had vowed to die “with honour and dignity”, but the execution did not go according to plan.
After three massive charges had been sent through her organs, her seemingly lifeless body was lifted from the chair. But prison doctors were horrified to notice that
