Talk:Robert Soblen

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Espionage conviction[edit]

The article apparently contradicts itself when it says first that "In August 1961, Soblen was sentenced to life imprisonment" then at the end says "Soblen was never convicted of any espionage charge." If he was sentenced to life imprisonment, he must have been convicted of something. According to the Haynes and Klehr book cited in the references, he was convicted of two counts of espionage (p. 226). The Time article cited also describes the trial as an espionage trial. If these sources are correct, the claim that "Soblen was never convicted of any espionage charge" should be removed. If these sources are incorrect or debated, or there is further information which has been omitted, please put up a note here for discussion. Otherwise I will go ahead and remove final sentence. Rgr09 (talk) 13:21, 17 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Article rewrite[edit]

After fixing the point noted above, I also attempted to provide inline citations for the article, but found there were a number of points that were not supported in the sources listed. In addition, big pieces of the article were devoted to trivial points such as how Soblen raised bail after his trial, and the reputation of the hospital where he worked, while major points, such as Soblen's activities in Trotskyist circles in the 1930s, where he was a well-known figure under the name Roman Well, and details of the activities he was charged with, were all omitted. A number of other inaccuracies were also in the article; for instance, Boris Morros was listed as the major witness against Soblen, but as far as I can tell, he did not appear in Soblen's trial at all; the main witness was Soblen's brother Jack. The new version is therefore pretty much a complete rewrite. I've put in a new list of sources and inline citations as well. Hopefully this will be an improvement. Look forward to comments and corrections. Rgr09 (talk) 12:38, 21 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]