A front-page obituary of David Greenglass published this week in the New York Times is seriously flawed. Not only does it contain inaccurate statements of fact, it also misrepresents the views of historians about the Rosenberg atomic espionage case.

The obituary stated that there is a “consensus among historians” that “the Greenglass-Rosenberg atomic bomb details were of little value to the Soviets, except to corroborate what they already knew, and that Ethel Rosenberg had played no active role in the conspiracy.” As five historians who have written six books on Soviet espionage, three specifically on the Rosenberg network and three in which the Rosenberg case was a major focus, we cannot fathom how that statement can be supported.