Max Elitcher
Max Elitcher (1918–2010) was a prosecution witness in the Julius and Ethel Rosenberg trial in 1951.
Because of his close friendship with
Elitcher maintained that Julius Rosenberg had attempted to recruit him as a
According to the authors of Invitation to an Inquest (1983): "At the trial, Elitcher had to be led frequently by Saypol as he told a story that was vague and improbable. He claimed that Rosenberg and also Sobell had on a number of occasions invited him to engage in espionage activities and that they had continued these requests sporadically over a four-year period - despite the fact that he never had turned over a single scrap of information to them."[2] The New York Daily News reported: "Elitcher left trial observers with the impression that his must have been a masterpiece of equivocation and temporizing, since the first pressure was put to him in 1944... He was still resisting suggestions from Sobell and Rosenberg, he asserted... in 1948."[3]
The only evidence against Morton Sobell was Elitcher's story about the visit to see Julius Rosenberg in July 1948, when he was living in Knickerbocker Village. He described the "35-millimeter film can" that Sobell was carrying but he admitted that he did not know what, if anything, the can contained, nor had he actually seen Sobell deliver it to Rosenberg. Elitcher was unable to say if Sobell gave Rosenberg any information that was secret.[4] In 2008, Sobell publicly admitted to spying.
Notes
- ^ "Biographies of Participants in the Rosenbergs Trial".
- ^ Walter Schneir and Miriam Schneir, Invitation to an Inquest (1983) page 326
- ^ New York Daily News (9 March 1951)
- ^ "Max Elitcher".
Sources
Douglas Linder, A Trial Account (2001)