Hiss and any number of Mafia criminals could not be convicted of their real crimes, so they had to be convicted of tax evasion. I guess that was better than nothing. But the Rosenbergs were executed for treason, even though we were not at war with the Soviet Union. Why were they not convicted of tax evasion and given a sentence of some years in jail? I will tell you why if you will listen.

Too many Jewish figures were so frightened that the anti-Semites would fix upon the Rosenbergs as proof of Judaeo-Bolshevism, the great sin of the Jews according to White Russian emigres and Adolf Hitler, that they insisted to the Jewish judge at the Rosenberg trial that the two criminals had to face the death penalty. This tells us something about the justice we pretend to uphold in this country. Hiss was just as guilty, but not being Jewish and having no connection with the fears about Judaeo-Bolshevism, he got a reasonably light sentence. How proud can we be?

Norman Ravitch *62
Savannah, Ga.