Jim Fitzgerald of the Associated Press reports on the 50th anniversary of the execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg for passing nuclear secrets to the Soviet Union, June 18, 2003:

[T]he 50th anniversary has spiked interest. On Thursday night [Pete] Seeger, Susan Sarandon, Harry Belafonte and other show business activists... will appear at a benefit for the Rosenberg Fund for Children. [The Rosenberg's son Robert] Meeropol runs the fund, which assists the children of people imprisoned, harassed, attacked or fired for taking a public stand.

Meeropol calls the foundation his "constructive revenge."

His memoir, "An Execution in the Family" is being published on the anniversary. In it, he recounts his admittedly vague memories of Rosenberg family life; his and his brother's adoption by Abel and Anne Meeropol; his own studies of his parents' case, which opened him to the possibility they may have been spies; and his difficulty in understanding why parents of small children would engage in such risk.

But Meeropol is also suspicious that recently released evidence may be government "disinformation."

"What a horror story it would be for me to accept it and then later find out that I've spread their propaganda for them," he said. "I couldn't live with myself."

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