ROSENBERGS' SENTENCING JUDGE DIES

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, February 3, 1992                   TAG: 9202030105
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: A-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: NEW YORK                                LENGTH: Medium
ROSENBERGS' SENTENCING JUDGE DIES
Irving Kaufman, the federal judge who sentenced Ethel and Julius Rosenberg to death for espionage, has died of cancer. He was 81.
Kaufman died Saturday at Mount Sinai Medical Center, said Kelly Larkin, a hospital spokeswoman.
Kaufman was a judge on the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan at the time of his death. He died from pancreatic cancer after being admitted to the hospital in January, court administrator Steven Flanders said.
"He was a very distinguished judge and one of the most able judges who presided over the 2nd Circuit," said Conrad K. Harper, president of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York.
Kaufman was serving in U.S. District Court in Manhattan in 1951 when he presided over the Rosenbergs' trial on charges they supplied key atom-bomb information to the Soviet Union. They were put to death two years later in the electric chair.
In 1961, President Kennedy elevated Kaufman from district court to the appeals court.
In 1971, he was the dissenting vote in a 2-1 decision barring The New York Times from publishing the Pentagon Papers. The U.S. Supreme Court later reversed the appellate court.
Kaufman was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, by President Reagan in 1987. Reagan recalled that President Eisenhower was inspired by the judge's handling of the Rosenberg case.
Kaufman also served as chairman of the President's Commission on Organized Crime during the Reagan administration.
"You took on the mob, the international communist conspiracy and even the U.S. government bureaucracy," Reagan told Kaufman during the awards ceremony.
He is survived by his wife, Helen; a son, James Michael, and four grandchildren. Two other sons died earlier. Services were scheduled for Tuesday morning at Park Avenue Synagogue.

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB