This exhaustively researched book -- all 608 pages of it -- is as much about understanding the nation's anti-communist psyche in the 1950s as it is about what some have called the most publicized spy hunt in history.
The authors don't reject the guilt of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. But they challenge the notion that they were crafty traitors whose theft of the atom bomb secret helped to end Amerca's nuclear weapon monopoly. The depict the Rosenbergs as "hapless scapegoats of a propoganda war," painting them as victims of shoddy judicial maneuvers and FBI intimidation tactics. ( )