The spy business often results in a sudden exchange of the dark shadows of the clandestine back room for the bright lights of the open courtroom. The situations that judges and juries face in espionage cases are typically more unusual, complex, and diverse than one might possibly imagine. Cecil C. Kuhne III describes a number of historical, law changing judicial cases, well-publicized criminal trials of those accused of treason against the United States, as well as lawsuits concerning other unusual matters, such as the governmental restrictions on bugging and other surveillance devices that cannot be sold to the general public. The author successfullyexplores well known espionage cases, such as the Julius and Ethel Rosenberg and Morton Sobell trial of 1951, as well as more recent cases where the courts have dealt with the activities of the National Security Administration (NSA) as they monitor telephone communications in their efforts to apprehend terrorist organizations. Spies on Trial brings the reader fast-paced stories of foreign spies engaged in daring deeds of sleuthing that undoubtedly have more than their fair share of intriguing moments. But nowhere is this suspense more intense than inside the courtroom, where the drama of intense covert activities is fully unfurled, offering fascinating glimpses into this vast and nefarious underground world of international espionage.

Discusses the famous espionage trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, covering both the prosecution and defense, the government's pursuit of this couple, and the aftermath of the trial.

Sixty years ago political divisions in the United States ran even deeper than today's name-calling showdowns between the left and right. Back then, to call someone a communist was to threaten that person's career, family, freedom, and, sometimes, life itself. Hysteria about the "red menace" mushroomed as the Soviet Union tightened its grip on Eastern Europe, Mao Zedong rose to power in China, and the atomic arms race accelerated. Spy scandals fanned the flames, and headlines warned of sleeper cells in the nation's midst--just as it does today with the "War on Terror." In his new book, The Fear Within, Scott Martelle takes dramatic aim at one pivotal moment of that era. On the afternoon of July 20, 1948, FBI agents began rounding up twelve men in New York City, Chicago, and Detroit whom the U.S. government believed posed a grave threat to the nation--the leadership of the Communist Party-USA. After a series of delays, eleven of the twelve "top Reds" went on trial in Manhattan's Foley Square in January 1949. The proceedings captivated the nation, but the trial quickly dissolved into farce. The eleven defendants were charged under the 1940 Smith Act with conspiring to teach the necessity of overthrowing the U.S. government based on their roles as party leaders and their distribution of books and pamphlets. In essence, they were on trial for their libraries and political beliefs, not for overt acts threatening national security. Despite the clear conflict with the First Amendment, the men were convicted and their appeals denied by the U.S. Supreme Court in a decision that gave the green light to federal persecution of Communist Party leaders--a decision the court effectively reversed six years later. But by then, the damage was done. So rancorous was the trial the presiding judge sentenced the defense attorneys to prison terms, too, chilling future defendants' access to qualified counsel. Martelle's story is a compelling look at how American society, both general and political, reacts to stress and, incongruously, clamps down in times of crisis on the very beliefs it holds dear: the freedoms of speech and political belief. At different points in our history, the executive branch, Congress, and the courts have subtly or more drastically eroded a pillar of American society for the politics of the moment. It is not surprising, then, that The Fear Within takes on added resonance in today's environment of suspicion and the decline of civil rights under the U.S. Patriot Act.

The arrest, trial and execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg in 1951 mesmerised an America coming to grips with the early Cold War and the anxiety aroused by the Soviet Union's testing of the atomic bomb. However, in 1965, Walter Schneir famously presented evidence that the Rosenbergs were innocent and had been framed by the FBI - a case which was brought into question in 1995 when the FBI released 3000 Soviet intelligence documents. This prompted Schneir to continue his research, which has lead to surprising and revelatory results.

The human cost of the anti-Communist witch-hunt during the McCarthy era is brought to life in Phantom Spies: Phantom Justice - Miriam Moskowitz' personal account of that terrible time. Ms. Moskowitz' was arrested in 1950 and prosecuted for conspiracy to obstruct justice during a grand jury investigation of suspected Soviet espionage. She was sensationally branded by the prosecution and in news stories as part of an atom bomb spy ring. Yet it was a lie. And her prosecutors knew it was a lie. Phantom Spies: Phantom Justice reveals through Ms. Moskowitz' many years of diligent research of court records, FBI documents and other sources that her prosecutors knew she was innocent, and yet kept silent as the lone witness against her repeatedly lied during his testimony. After she was convicted of conspiracy to obstruct justice FBI officials and the government's lawyers also remained silent as she was sentenced to two years in federal prison and fined $10,000. Now in her mid-90s, Ms. Moskowitz has lived for 62 years with the false stigma of being a convicted felon and an enemy of the United States. This updated edition includes two new chapters, additional photos, and FBI documents with proof of her innocence that the prosecutors concealed from her lawyers, the trial judge, the jurors, and the appeals court judges who upheld her conviction in 1951. One of the new chapters elaborates on Ms. Moskowitz' experience in prison with Iva Toguri d'Aquino, who was wrongly identified as Tokyo Rose and falsely convicted of treason in 1949. She was granted a full and unconditional pardon in 1976 by President Ford based on newly discovered evidence that the government's two key witnesses committed perjury at the behest of the prosecution. David Alman, co-founder in 1951 of the National Committee to Secure Justice in The Rosenberg Case, and co-author of Exoneration: The Trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg and Morton Sobell (2010), writes in the Foreword: "A few simple questions may occur to readers after they turn the last page of Phantom Spies: Phantom Justice: How did all this happen? What happened to the Constitution? What happened to the conventional concept of Americanism? Where was our vaunted media? Where were the whistleblowers?" Hans Sherrer, editor and publisher of Justice Denied - the magazine for the wrongly convicted, writes in the Afterword: "Miriam Moskowitz is an innocent person who was caught up in the whirlwind of anti-communist hysteria that prevailed in this country at the time of her trial in 1950. Her book is much more than a personal memoir, it is a valuable well-documented first-hand account that both corrects and contributes to the historical record of the McCarthy era." Barbara Jean Trembley, Curator of Personal Documents for the Iva Ikuko Toguri Estate writes: "Miriam Moskowitz draws back the curtain on a distinct history when justice was obscured by politics and personal agendas. Ms. Moskowitz proves once again the adage that truth gains power over time." Michael Meeropol, older son of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg writes about Phantom Spies: Phantom Justice: "Miriam Moskowitz' story about how she became "collateral damage" in the government's pursuit of real and fake spies is a must reading for all who cherish our constitutional form of government. Her survival and personal triumph should be celebrated by us all."

The central figure of this novel is a young man whose parents were executed for conspiring to steal atomic secrets for Russia. His name is Daniel Isaacson, and as the story opens, his parents have been dead for many years. He has had a long time to adjust to their deaths. He has not adjusted. Out of the shambles of his childhood, he has constructed a new life—marriage to an adoring girl who gives him a son of his own, and a career in scholarship. It is a life that enrages him. In the silence of the library at Columbia University, where he is supposedly writing a Ph.D. dissertation, Daniel composes something quite different. It is a confession of his most intimate relationships—with his wife, his foster parents, and his kid sister Susan, whose own radicalism so reproaches him. It is a book of memories: riding a bus with his parents to the ill-fated Paul Robeson concert in Peekskill; watching the FBI take his father away; appearing with Susan at rallies protesting their parents’ innocence; visiting his mother and father in the Death House. It is a book of investigation: transcribing Daniel’s interviews with people who knew his parents, or who knew about them; and logging his strange researches and discoveries in the library stacks. It is a book of judgments of everyone involved in the case—lawyers, police, informers, friends, and the Isaacson family itself. It is a book rich in characters, from elderly grand- mothers of immigrant culture, to covert radicals of the McCarthy era, to hippie marchers on the Pen-tagon. It is a book that spans the quarter-century of American life since World War II. It is a book about the nature of Left politics in this country—its sacrificial rites, its peculiar cruelties, its humility, its bitterness. It is a book about some of the beautiful and terrible feelings of childhood. It is about the nature of guilt and innocence, and about the relations of people to nations. It is The Book of Daniel.