Milton Rosenberg was not related to Julius Rosenberg, whom he had never met.
The child of struggling Orthodox Jews who had fled Eastern Europe, he was a
staunch anti-communist, a Republican and a civilian Air Force employee since
1941. So he was shocked, when an Air Force officer entered his office and told
him that he was being dismissedwithout payas a security threat. His
dismissal, based on Executive Order 9835, the loyalty program President Harry
Truman authorized in 1947, was effective immediately. Rosenberg was escorted
from the building to his car.
By the time he arrived at his apartment in nearby Asbury Park, he was ashen,
says his widow, Eva Rosenberg, now 93 and living near Cleveland, Ohio. "We had
young children," she recalls. "Paula was seven and Stuart was four. Karen was
an infant." Her mother cried, recalls her daughter Paula Hecker, who now lives
in Tucson, Arizona. "I remember a lot of hysteria."
Rosenberg was given no explanation for his dismissal. "For 30 days we didn't
know why," says Eva Rosenberg. On October 12 he received a letter from the
Central Loyalty-Security Board, detailing the charges:
1. "On all the evidence, reasonable grounds exist for the belief that your
immediate removal is warranted by the demands of national security. The
evidence indicates that: During the period from 1945 to May 1950, at or near
Washington Village, Asbury Park, NJ, you associated to a close and habitual
degree with Louis Kaplan, who, evidence in the files of the Air Force
indicates, has been active in the affairs of the Civil Rights Congress and of
the Communist Party. The Civil Rights Congress has been designated by the
Attorney General of the United States as communist. The Communist Party has
been designated by the Attorney General of the United States as communist,
subversive and seeking to alter the form of government of the United States by
unconstitutional means.
2. The foregoing reported association, and all the evidence related thereto,
indicates that you have been and are a member, close affiliate or sympathetic
associate to the Communist Party."
Until earlier that year, Milton Rosenberg and his family had lived on one end
of a two-block-long garden apartment project called Washington Village. The
aforementioined Louis Kaplanknown for writing "communist-sympathetic" letters
to the editor of the local newspaper, The Asbury Park Evening Presslived at
the other end. The Rosenbergs had never associated socially or politically with
Kaplan, a stout, balding man who had left his job at the Fort Monmouth
Standards Agency in 1947. He had become a chicken farmer, and his wife Ruth
sold eggs to neighbors.
Executive Order 9835 protected the confidentiality of informants, so Rosenberg
was in the dark as to the source of the information that had led to his
dismissal, but he did have a right to an administrative hearing before the
loyalty board. Sidney Meistrich, a friend, prominent local attorney and a
leader at Asbury Park's Congregation Sons of Israel, the Orthodox synagogue
where the Rosenbergs' two older children attended religious school, counseled
Rosenberg to hire a non-Jewish lawyer.
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