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 == Response to Ebralph and nobs == 

 I have read all the posts and you have not addressed any of the issues to any satisfactory degree. Your primary assumptions derive from your wholesale and entirely uncritical acceptance of Klehr and Haynes, and others of the same outlook. You accept their narrow arguments at face value, with merely one bare note to the contrary. Nor is there any context. You appear to be unaware of the vast literature that surrounds the era, and thus are incapable of bringing in other comparative lines that might moderate your view. You are writing history here, you cannot merely throw in at the end one paragraph of Navasky and believe that mitigates the totality of the bias. 

 You spend your time diddling on the discussion page over which individuals were really espionage agents, while the article itself throws 349 in the wash, claiming as proven fact that they all had covert relations with the USSR. This is absurd. Not even Whittaker Chambers claimed Donald Hiss to be a spy, and to claim I. F. Stone, of all people, as an agent is merely insane. Ebralph's suggestion to me that I provide sources for the innocence of any specific named individual is again demonstrable of intent. You have merely taken the assertion of guilt based on names found in a file, then ask others to prove they are not. You cannot prove a negative. I cannot prove that you yourself are not, were not, a Soviet spy. One can only point out that the case provided comes nowhere near proving the assertion. 

 Many of your statements are just plain sloppy, which leads me to wonder just how well you know the field. What does it mean to say that Venona shows ""Ethel was guilty of cooperation""!? It is utterly meaningless. There is no such crime as ""cooperation."" The question is whether she was an accomplice by action or deed, and that remains just that, a question. Cable #1657 states openly that she did not work, but was aware of her husband's activity (which is not a punishable crime), neither did she have a code name, which points again to her not being involved. But, golly gee, despite the fact that this purports to be an article on the VENONA transcripts you neglect to mention what they actually say and merely assert a conclusion. This is not history, but diatribe.  

 Her brother has admitted to being coached to say that she did the typing  the prosecution needed that to tie her in, as mere knowledge of her husband's activities was not a crime. On Feb. 8, 1951, one month before their trial began Myles Lane of the Justice Department met with in secret session with the Congressional Committee on Atomic Energy. He informed them that the Department believed Julius was the ""keystone to a lot of other espionage agents"" and that the only thing that would break him was the ""prospect of the death penalty."" He then added that it was important to give Ethel ""a stiff sentence,"" also as a means to break Julius, even though the case against her ""was not too strong. . .  it is about the only thing you can use as a lever against these people."" At that the point the case against Ethel was nonexistent. They knew she was aware of Julius's work, but that was all. Eight days before the trial began her brother, under pressure from the prosecution, implicated Ethel in the sole act that would take her life  the typing of the notes. This, despite the fact, that up until then both Greenglasses had consistently asserted that the notes were handwritten. Years later, in a 1970s interview with author Ronald Radosh, the Greenglasses were hopelessly vague in remembering the typing incident, although they clearly remembered other events. Shocked to learn that it was the typing that gained Ethel the death penalty, Ruth said, ""It was almost as if we threw that in to involve her . . ."" Again, you avoid all evidence contrary to your assertions, as if you ignoring it will make it disappear.  

 To state that ""their contributions to Soviet nuclear espionage were less important than was publicly alleged at the time"" is to truly gild the lily. Julius's (not Ethel's) contribution was utterly useless, if not partly manufactured by the prosecution. The most damning piece of evidence against him was the drawing of the shaped charges, allegedly supplied to him by David Greenglass. Not only was this evidence absurd at the time, as one cannot reduce the information needed to a crude one-page sketch in any meaningful way, but the pertinent VENONA cable casts doubts that Greenglass ever presented the drawing at all (again, have you even read the transcripts? If so, why aren't they quoted?) Read VENONA #28, dated 8 Jan. 1945, then look to the timeline of the case as outlined by the prosecution. This cable covers the meeting at which Greenglass allegedly turned over the drawing to Julius, yet there is no mention of it at all. In the section where they detail what he has delivered (whi