Name Allen Rosenberg Role Attorney | Died April 1, 1991 | |
Education Harvard Law School, Harvard University | ||
Allan Robert Rosenberg (April 21, 1909 – April 1, 1991) was a 20th-century American attorney and civil servant, accused as a Soviet spy by Elizabeth Bentley and listed under Party name "Roy, code names "Roza" in the VENONA Papers and code name "Sid" in the Vasilliev Papers.
Contents
Ware Group
Nathan Witt had succeeded Harold Ware as leader of the underground Ware Group of Soviet spies upon Ware's death in 1935, while Whittaker Chambers oversaw the group and couriered Government documents it obtained from Washington to New York.
In 1936, Rosenberg was working "as an unpaid volunteer" for the La Follette Civil Liberties Committee, in fact a subcommittee of the U.S. Senate Committee on Education and Labor (where Ware Group member John Abt worked); Charles Kramer and Charles Flato (another "secret communist") would join them there.
In 1937, he transferred briefly to the Railroad Retirement Board and then in April 1937 joined the National Labor Relations Board through 1941 at the suggestion of Max Lowenthal. There, Charles Kramer joined him the following year. That same year, he also joined the National Lawyers Guild (where he was a member as a late as 1956 during his second appearance before HUAC).
Witt placed Rosenberg in charge of a group of six to eight attorneys during a Congressional investigation into the questionable activities of the National Labor Relations Board (NRLB) in 1938 and 1939.
Perlo Group
In 1941, Rosenberg transferred from the NRLB to the Board of Economic Warfare (or Office of Economic Warfare).
"A couple of years later," he joined the Foreign Economic Administration (FEA).
Rosenberg was a friend of Charles Kramer (the only member of the Ware Group known to continue on into the Perlo Group). Rosenberg was also an amateur photographer with a dark room in his home.
Rosenberg was a member of the Perlo group of Soviet spies during World War II.
In November 1943, Earl Browder turned control of the group over to Jacob Golos two months before his death and it subsequently was taken over by Elizabeth Bentley.
While employed as the Chief of the Economic Institution Staff for the Foreign Economic Administration, Rosenberg allegedly supplied the Soviet Union with voluminous observations, recommendations, plans and proposals made by various government officials concerning the handling of postwar Germany. He also worked on the Board of Economic Warfare since 1941. Rosenberg's name appears in clear text in a December 1944 Venona decrypt as the source of a State Department memo. Rosenberg appears in the Venona project under his real name.
In April 1951, Rosenberg argued Anti-Fascist Committee v. McGrath before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Testimony
In June 23, 1952, and again on February 21, 1956, Rosenberg testified in Congress before HUAC. Counsel in 1952 was David Scribner, counsel in 1956 Benjamin Loring Young.
VENONA Papers
Rosenberg's name appears without cover in Venona but with a cryptonym in the Gorsky Memo.