My own conclusion is that ultimately Ethel saw her death as inevitable. She could not confess to something that she had not done and so, in a topsy-turvy world where logic and rationalism no longer played a role, she believed she was dying for truth and justice and for her personal legacy. For one brief moment in time, hysteria overtook common sense and, in order to appear strong in the face of a credible Communist threat, the American government allowed this profoundly moral woman to be executed, and in the most brutally incompetent manner.
