The sons of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg say their ordeal as the children of America's most well-known Cold War spies is comparable to being members of Osama bin Laden's family after the 9/11 attacks.
And in an interview that will air Sunday at 7 pm/ET on CBS' "60 Minutes," Michael and Robert Rosenberg also ask President Barack Obama to exonerate their mother.
In 1950, the brothers, ages 7 and 3, watched in horror as their parents were arrested for conspiring to provide atomic secrets to the Soviet Union. Relatives were afraid to take them in and one town blocked them from attending school.
"I really hated myself... I was too scared to admit my parents were my parents," Michael tells Anderson Cooper.
His brother Robert adds: "We were the children of Communist spies. Being the Rosenberg's children in 1950 was almost like being Osama bin Laden's kids here after 9/11."
Three years later, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed in the electric chair at Sing Sing prison in Ossining, New York. The boys changed their last name to Meeropol when a couple adopted them.
While the brothers admit their father was a spy, Michael insists their mother was "collateral damage" and framed by prosecutors in a bid to get their father to cooperate with the FBI.
Citing evidence that has come out since their parents' trial, the brothers want the president to proclaim she their mother was wrongfully convicted and executed.
"Our mother was killed for something she did not do, she was taken away from us," Robert says.
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