A US man convicted in the biggest espionage trial of the Cold War has, after more than 50 years, finally admitted his guilt, The New York Times reported Friday.
The revelation came as new information cast doubt on the conviction of another defendant, Ethel Rosenberg, who was executed for passing nuclear secrets to the Soviet Union.
Morton Sobell, 91, always maintained his innocence throughout the half century following his conviction as one of the defendants in the 1951 Rosenberg spy trial.
But now in an interview with the New York Times he answered, when asked if he had spied: "Yeah, yeah, yeah, call it that. I never thought of it as that in those terms."
Sobell spent more than 18 years in US prisons, including on the infamous Alcatraz island, for passing secrets to the Soviets during World War II.
But he justified his actions Friday, telling the daily that he had given only defensive weapons at a time when the Soviet Union was a US ally in the struggle against Nazi Germany.
Sobell was also a communist, something he says he regrets. "Now I know it was an illusion. I was taken in."
The revelation came as the National Archives released 940 pages of grand jury testimony given ahead of the trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, convicted of passing nuclear secrets to Moscow and both executed in 1953.
The previously unreleased testimony -- published Thursday following a lawsuit by activists and historians -- apparently strongly supports critics' belief that Ethel Rosenberg's conviction was faulty.
A key piece of testimony during the trial was given by Ethel Rosenberg's brother and sister in law, David and Ruth Greenglass, who claimed Ethel had typed up nuclear secrets stolen by David Greenglass from the Los Alamos nuclear weapons laboratory.
This meant Ethel Rosenberg had direct involvement in the atomic espionage plot.
However, transcripts of grand jury testimony collected before the trial show Ruth Greenglass never mentioned Ethel Rosenberg typing the notes. In fact, at that time Greenglass testified she herself wrote out the secrets by hand.
The secrets were then passed to Julius Rosenberg, who gave them to the Soviets.
The transcripts "directly contradict the central charge against Ethel Rosenberg," said one of the groups that pressured for release of the information, the non-profit National Security Archive.
Despite that, the grand jury transcripts do appear to support the allegation that Ethel Rosenberg was at least aware of the conspiracy, The New York Times said.
Copyright 2008 AFP American Edition
