May 30, 2024 • 44 mins
In 1945, American journalists in Japan scrambled to identify the legendary "Tokyo Rose," an English-speaking, female broadcaster who had performed in Japanese propaganda radio broadcasts during the war. One woman who seemed to fit the bill was Iva Toguri D'Aquino, an American citizen who worked on the famous radio program "Zero Hour." How had Iva become Tokyo Rose? And were her actions treasonous? This is part one of a two part series.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
You're listening to History on Trial, a production of iHeart
Podcasts Listener Discretion.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Advised Hi History on Trial Listeners. Today's story will come
in two parts. This episode will cover the lead up
to the trial, and the second episode will cover the
trial and its aftermath. Thanks for listening. Clark Lee and
(00:28):
Harry Brendage couldn't believe their luck. Out of all the
reporters in Japan, they were about to break one of
the biggest stories of the summer. It was August nineteen
forty five, only weeks after Japan's surrender in World War Two,
and Tokyo was flooded with journalists. All the reporters Lee
(00:52):
remembered were going after the same three stories. They wanted
to get an interview with Hideki Tojo, Japan's leader during
the war. They wanted to describe the wreckage of Tokyo,
and perhaps most of all, they wanted to identify Tokyo Rose.
(01:14):
Tokyo Rose, the name conjured glamour, romance, intrigue. Tokyo Rose
was famous all across the Pacific, from Alaska to Borneo,
a legend amongst soldiers and sailors alike. For two years,
as Allied forces fought their way across the ocean and islands.
(01:38):
Tokyo Rose had kept them company. No matter how remote
their ship or how wretched their conditions, Tokyo Rose had
been there. Her mythological status and far reach might make
her seem supernatural, but it was simpler than that. Tokyo
(01:58):
Rose was a radio host. Throughout World War Two, the
Japanese Broadcasting Corporation or NHK short for Nipoon Hoso Kyo Kai,
had broadcast English language propaganda radio programs throughout the Pacific.
Many of these programs used a female broadcaster. As the
(02:20):
war wore on, these broadcasters became legendary, and they were
often grouped together under a nickname Tokyo Rose. American press
reports depicted Tokyo Rose as a racialized fem fatale, a seductive,
exotic siren luring Allied Gis to abandon their cause. The
(02:43):
Gis themselves mostly had a less dramatic view of Tokyo Rose.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
Many thought she was just good company.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
She played popular music on her broadcasts, tease the men
and crack jokes. Many Gis, instead of seeing Tokyo Row
as a propaganda pusher, thought that she boosted morale the
Navy even issued Tokyo Rose a tongue in cheek citation,
saying Tokyo Rose has persistently entertained the men and inspired
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them to a greater determination than ever to get the
war over quickly, which explains why they are now driving
onward to Tokyo itself, so that soon they will be
able to thank Tokyo Rose in person. Now that the
war had ended, the press was determined to find the
real Tokyo Rose, not to thank her, of course, but
(03:38):
to get an exclusive interview with her. When Clark Lee,
a reporter for Hearst's International news service, and Harry Brundage,
a writer at Cosmopolitan magazine, arrived in Japan in August
nineteen forty five, they decided to team up and find
Tokyo Rose first.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
The competition was stiff.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
On August thirtieth, a group of reporters burst into the
NHK offices and began interrogating staff members there about Tokyo
Rose's real identity. The NHK employees claimed to have no
idea what they were talking about. People began wondering if
Tokyo Rose really existed. On August thirty first, an article
(04:22):
from the associated press claimed that she was real, but
acknowledged that she was more than one person. Lee and
Brendage were beginning to get discouraged. They reached out to
an old friend of Lee's, Leslie Nakashima. Nakashima, an American
of Japanese descent, had better luck at the NHK office.
(04:42):
Kenkichi Oki, an NHK employee, confirmed that there were five
or six women who had broadcast in English during the
war from the Tokyo station, but Oki would only give
Nakashima one name, Iva Toguri Dakino. Excited, Nakashima called up
Lee and Brundage to report his progress. Brundage and Lee
(05:05):
told Nakashima that they would offer two thousand dollars or
close to thirty five thousand in today's money, for an
exclusive interview with Iva. When Nakashima visited Iva on September first,
she was reluctant to give an interview. Her husband, Felipe,
was also skeptical, but Nakashima told them that Iva's name
(05:27):
was already public. She was going to be the focus
of press attention anyways, so why not get paid for it?
And the Dacuinos needed the money. Post war, Japan was
economically devastated, and the pay that Nakashima was offering was
close to three hundred times what Iva made in a month,
so Iva agreed to speak with Lee and Brandage.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
As the two reporters.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
Sat in their hotel room awaiting Iva's arrival, they buzzed
with anticipation.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
They had identified Tokyo Rose. They had gotten to her first.
Now all that.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
Remained was seeing the woman behind the voice, and then
Iva came through the door. Whatever Lee and Brundage had
been expecting, she wasn't it. Instead of a glamorous siren,
Lee and Brundage found a tiny young woman. Iva was
barely five feet tall. Years of malnutrition during the war
(06:28):
made her seem even smaller. She wore her thick black
hair in pigtails. The reporters thought she looked maybe twenty
years old. In reality, she was twenty nine. She had
a forthright manner and unexpectedly a rather unremarkable voice. Things
only got stranger from there. If Lee and Brundage had
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expected to find a die hard Japanese patriot, they could
not have been more wrong. Iva, it emerged, was an
American citizen. Her parents were both Japanese, but Iva herself
had been born and raised in California. In fact, she
barely spoke Japanese. Iva claimed that she had gotten stuck
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in Japan when the war broke out while she was
visiting a sick relative there. She had been forced to
do the radio broadcast job to survive, She said. She
told the reporters that she was delighted America had won
the war, and that she had always believed they would.
This didn't make for a particularly compelling story, Lee and
(07:32):
Brendage thought. When Lee published his first story on Iva
on September third, nineteen forty five, he mentioned that quote
circumstances had forced her into broadcasting, but he also added
a little drama by raising the question of treason. Iva,
Lee wrote, does not feel that she was a traitor
(07:55):
to the US for the job of trying to make
American troops homesick. Iva had never even considered the question
of treason, nor was she concerned about the question now.
In truth, the United States government also did not consider
the question seriously. After briefly questioning Iva, the Army let
her go and even asked her to participate in a
(08:17):
film about her time as Tokyo rose, but things were
about to take a drastic turn. Three years after Clark
Lee and Harry Brundage first interviewed Iva, to Gorri Daquino,
she would be standing trial in San Francisco, accused of treason.
(08:38):
In a shocking reversal largely driven by public pressure and
political motives, the United States Justice Department was pursuing Iva,
and they were determined to convict her, no matter the
illegal lengths they would have to go to do so.
(08:59):
Welcome to History on Trial. I'm your host, Mira Hayward.
This week the United States v Iva Takori Dakino. Iva
Ikuko Toguri was the first American citizen in her family.
Her father, June, came to the United States from Japan
(09:22):
in eighteen ninety nine. On a trip back to Japan
in nineteen oh seven, he married Fumi Imuro, but had
had to return to America shortly after. The two spent
the first years of their marriage separated by an ocean,
with June only able to visit several times. Their first child, Fred,
(09:43):
was born in Japan, but in nineteen thirteen Fumi and
Fred were able to join June permanently. In America, and
thus their second child, Iva, was born in Los Angeles
in nineteen sixteen. In a fact that would seem too
on the nose if you scripted it, Iva was born
on July fourth. June to Goody added Iva to his
(10:06):
family register in Japan, which made her legally a Japanese
citizen too, But in nineteen thirty two, after Japan invaded Manchuria,
he took the advice of Japanese American community leaders and
removed Iva and her two younger sisters from the family register,
making the three girls entirely American citizens. Iva and her
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sisters were nise, a term for the American born children
of Japanese immigrants. The Taguris moved frequently around southern California
while June searched for work, but by nineteen twenty eight
he had saved enough money to open a small store
in Los Angeles. It was a happy childhood. Iva and
her siblings attended school, helped out at their father's store,
(10:52):
and tended to their mother, who had diabetes and high
blood pressure. June wanted his children to assimilate to white
America culture, though the Tagories occasionally spoke Japanese at home.
And celebrated some Japanese holidays. June encouraged his children to
speak English and public, observe American holidays, and play mainly
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with white children. Iva grew into a sporty, outgoing, good
humored teenager. She wanted to be a doctor, and in
nineteen thirty four she enrolled in Compton Junior College. After
six months, she transferred to UCLA, where she studied zoology.
She loved her coursework, choosing to spend her school holidays
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out in the field on research trips with professors. She
also loved college life and attended football games and played
tennis with friends. After graduating in nineteen forty, I have
a plan to pursue graduate work in medicine. She started
taking more zoology and pre medical courses. The future seemed
(11:55):
wide open for her, but in the summer of nineteen
forty one, a letter changed everything. That June, the Tagoris
received a letter from Fumi's brother in law in Japan.
He wrote that Fumi's sister Shizu, was gravely ill and
wished to see Fumi while she still could after more
(12:17):
than thirty years apart. Fumi herself was too ill to
make the trip, so the Tagories decided to send Iva
in her place. Iva was not happy about this plan,
but agreed to travel to Japan. In July, June wrote
to the State Department in Washington to apply for a
passport for Iva. Unlike today, passports were not required for
(12:41):
international travel at the time, but June wanted to make
sure that Iva's documents were all in order. However, as
the date of Iva's departure grew closer, no passport arrived.
June got in contact with the Immigration office in Los Angeles,
who told him that Iva could substitute a notarized stificate
of identification for her passport and then apply for a
(13:03):
passport for the American consulate in Tokyo. However, the passport
requirements were about to change in ways that would profoundly
affect Iva's life. In November nineteen forty one, the State
Department declared that, due to the advent of the war,
all international travel to or from the United States after
(13:26):
January fifteenth, nineteen forty two, would now require a passport.
Iva's trip to Japan in the summer of nineteen forty
one would not be impacted by this change, but her
plan returned to America scheduled for the spring of nineteen
forty two would be impossible without a passport, and despite
(13:48):
the Immigration Office's recommendation, getting a passport while abroad would
turn out to be extremely challenging. Ignorant of this change,
Iva departed for Japan on July fifth, nineteen forty one,
a day after her twenty fifth birthday. Nearly three weeks later,
(14:08):
on July twenty fourth, Iva disembarked at Yokohama and met
her uncle and cousins for the first time. Her mother's
family was welcoming and friendly, but Iva felt ill at ease.
Japan impressed me as very, very strange. I've remembered all
the customs were strange to me. The food was entirely different,
(14:32):
the apparel was different, the houses were different. I felt
like a perfect stranger, and the Japanese considered me very queer.
She was shocked by the poverty she saw in Japan.
The country had been at war with China for four
years at this point, and the economy was devastated. Food
and other essential resources were scarce. After years of speaking
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mainly English, her spoken Japanese was a extremely rusty, and
she could not read or write at all. Iva also
had a hard time communicating with her family back in America.
Tensions between Japan and the United States steadily increased over
the summer and fall of nineteen forty one, although Iva
was largely unaware of just how bad things were because
(15:20):
she could not read Japanese newspapers and her relatives tried
to protect her from the news. In early August, Iva
went to the American Consulate to apply for a passport.
The consulate told her that they would first have to
verify her identity with the State Department in Washington, which
could take some time. By November, Iva still hadn't heard
(15:42):
anything from the consulate and she was becoming increasingly homesick.
At the end of the month, she made an expensive
international telephone call and begged her father to buy her
passage home. June, concerned about Iva's well being, agreed and
said he would work on getting her a ticket, But
when Iva's family contacted the steamship office, they learned that
(16:05):
she would need a passport to return to America. Iva
tried to speed things up the consulate. The consulate told
her to get a new letter of identification, but this
paperwork would in turn require several other forms, scrambling to
get the paperwork together before the ship left. On December tewod,
Iva encountered obstacle after obstacle, the red tape was insurmountable
(16:29):
and Iva missed the ship, and then five days later,
the Japanese attacked the US naval base at Pearl Harbor.
All travel between Japan and America was immediately shut down.
Two days after Pearl Harbor, a man from the Japanese
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Special Security Police showed up at Iva's family's home. The
officer told Iva that she needed to renounce her American citizenship.
When Iva refused, the man left, but then returned every
day for the next two weeks to continue to pressure her.
Iva was one of the approximately ten thousand Japanese Americans
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who were stuck in Japan after Pearl Harbor. Many of them,
like Iva, were nise second generation Japanese Americans. It was
extremely difficult for these people who found themselves caught between
two countries who were both suspicious of them. In Japan,
they were pressured to give up their American citizenship by
(17:33):
the military and the Special Police. It was difficult to
obtain a ration card or get a job while still
holding American citizenship, so many ultimately renounced that citizenship. Iva, however,
held out. Things were no easier for Japanese Americans in America.
(17:54):
In February nineteen forty two, President Franklin Roosevelt issued Executive
Order nine six six. This order authorized the removal of
Japanese Americans, both foreign and American born, from any quote
military areas, which came to be defined as the.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
Entire West Coast.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
This order was based on suspicion that Japanese Americans might
collaborate with Japan. Between March and August nineteen forty two,
more than one hundred thousand Japanese Americans were forcibly removed
from their homes and sent to prison camps, where conditions
were horrible. The mass removal and incarceration of these people,
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two thirds of whom were American citizens, was a sickening
violation of their human rights and civil liberties, and is
an enduring stain on American history. When Iva heard that
her family had been sent to a prison camp in Arizona,
she did not believe that such a thing could happen
in America. She thought that the story be Japanese propaganda.
(19:02):
In February, Iva had been delighted to learn that the
Swiss Consulate was organizing a repatriationship for Americans in Japan.
She applied for a spot, but when the Swiss Consulate
telegraphed the State Department to confirm Iva's citizenship, the department
replied that there were doubts about her status. These doubts
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are impossible to explain. Iva had been born in the
United States and had never left the country for the
first twenty five years of her life. Thanks to the
State departments in action, Iva could not get on the ship,
and things were only getting more difficult in Japan. The
harassment by the military and secret police only intensified the
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longer Iva refused to give up her American citizenship. In June,
she decided to leave her uncle and aunt's home because
she didn't want her family to suffer for their connection
with her. Iva now had to pay rent at a
boarding house, but the money that she had taken to Japan,
which was only meant to cover six months, was fast
(20:06):
running out. Struggling to make ends meet, she tried to
find a job. It wasn't easy, no one wanted to
hire American citizens, but after a three month search, Iva
managed to get a part time position at the Domain
News agency. The late night schedule was miserable and the
pay was barely enough to cover her rent. By the
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time the next repatriationship left in September nineteen forty two,
Iva had exhausted her meager savings and could not buy
a ticket. It seemed that she was stuck in Japan.
But there was one silver lining of that difficult summer.
In mid July, Iva met a new hire at Dome
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named Felipe Dakino, of Portuguese and Japanese descent. Felipe had
grown up in Japan and attended Catholic schools, so he
spoke fluent English. Iva was delighted to have someone to
talk to, and the pair quickly bonded over their shared
support for the American cause, something no one else around
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them agreed with. Once Felipe even got into a fistfight
with a colleague over pro American remarks Iva had made.
A year later, in June nineteen forty three, Iva was hospitalized.
She was extremely weak from lack of food and essential nutrients.
The military police had at one point blocked her from
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getting a ration card when she continued to hold on
to her American citizenship. Iva eventually recovered, but her medical
bills put her in debt, and she decided to find
another part time job to pay back her bills. In
late August, Iva was hired as a typist at NHK.
Her job was to type up the broadcast scripts and
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correct grammatical mistakes. There was quite a bit of work
for Iva to do in this regard. NHK, like many
other Japanese news agencies, had been co opted into the
war effort. The agency now produced propaganda under the command
of Major Shikitsugu Suneishi. Suneishi had no propaganda experience, and
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he and his subordinates spoke limited English, so their broadcasts
were littered with errors. To try to fix this problem,
NHK began to hire native English speakers to serve as
radio announcers. Suneyishi also forced prisoners of war with radio
experience to participate in his programming. One of the first
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POWs brought in was Major Charles Cousins, an Englishman who
had worked as a radio announcer in Australia. Cousins had
initially refused to help the propaganda effort and was subsequently
shipped off to a brutal labor camp. Suneishi eventually brought
Cousins back to Tokyo and threatened the man with death
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if he did not participate. Cousins reluctantly agreed to work
at NHK. He was soon joined by two other POWs,
Norman Reyes and Wallace Ince, who had been similarly coerced
with death threats. The men were put in charge of
a program called Zero Hour, which broadcast every evening. The
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Japanese had conceived of Zero Hour as a way to
lure allied gis into listening to more of their programming,
so they told the POWs to make Zero Hour appealing
to Western listeners. The POWs realized that they could use
this premise to their advantage. As the historian Messiah Deuce
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writes in Tokyo Rows Orphan of the Pacific, the men
quote made Zero Hour into an entertainment program that would
boost GI morale rather than destroy it. They did their
best to downplay propaganda, reading up jects actionable news items
hurriedly or in a joking tone of voice. Zero Hour
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quickly became a hit. In November nineteen forty three, Suniishi
decided to expand Zero Hour The POWs were concerned that
an expansion would dilute their control of the program and
thus their ability to sabotage the propaganda content, but Cousins
had an idea. When Iva to Gory had arrived at
(24:27):
NHK in August, she had immediately tried to befriend the POWs,
grateful to have more pro American English speaking contacts. The
men were initially suspicious, but once they realized how sincere
she was, they became friendly. Iva had even begun smuggling food, medicine,
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and warm clothing for the POWs. These items were gratefully
received by the POWs, who lived in wretched conditions at
bunka Camp, a prison specifically for captured men, were working
on broadcasts. When Cousins was ordered to expand a zero hour,
he decided to find staff who would aid in his
(25:10):
sabotage efforts. He had to be careful with who he trusted,
and in a station full of the enemy, there were
few options. But that's when he thought of Iva. He
could bring her on, and then he had an even
better idea. They needed a new announcer for the program.
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The station had many talented female broadcasters, but Cousins didn't
want a talented broadcaster. He wanted a person with a
bad voice, a comic voice, a voice that would do
anything but sell propaganda. And Iva, whose voice would be
described as crow like, rough, and hacking, was just such
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a person. Iva was reluctant to join Zero Hour, but
once Cousins explained what he and the other POWs were
trying to do with the program, she agreed to become
an announcer. Sometime in mid November nineteen forty three, Iva
Taguri sat down in front of a microphone at the
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NHK offices and broadcast for the very first time. It
was a broadcast that would help birth a legend and
haunt Iva for the rest of her life. We're going
to take a little break now. When we return, we'll
pick Iva up in the broadcasting studio. Zero Hour came
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on air every night at six pm Tokyo time. The
program ran for an hour, always following the same schedule.
First music, then messages home from Allied POW's, then Iva's segment.
Iva did not want to use her real name in
her broadcasts, so Cousin suggested a nickname. He proposed Anne,
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short for announcer, and later added orphan, in a cheeky
nod to the Japanese propaganda term for Allied sailors Orphans
of the Pacific. The name referenced the fact that, like
these gis Iva I was stuck far away from home.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
Orphan.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
Anne's portion of Zero Hour lasted fifteen to twenty minutes,
but it mainly consisted of music. Iva only spoke for
two to three minutes, always reading directly from Cousins's script.
The tone of her announcements was always playful greetings everybody
went one script, How are my victims this evening already
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for a vicious assault on your morale? The vicious assault,
in this case, being playing popular American music. After Iva's
segment came news segments, then more music than a sign off.
She would come into the NHK studio for two to
three hours every evening to prepare for and broadcast the show,
(28:09):
except for Sundays, when another female announcer replaced her. During
the day, Iva worked as a secretary for the Danish
consul in Tokyo. She had had to quit her job
at Domain after getting into a vicious argument over the
war with her Japanese colleagues.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
There.
Speaker 2 (28:26):
Iva became close to the Danish consul and his family,
and they generously shared some of their special diplomatic rations
with her, including.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
Matches, soap, and sugar.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
Iva would trade these valuable items for food and medicine,
which she then smuggled to the POW's working at NHK.
She also brought the POW's good news from abroad. Felipe Jaquino,
now Iva's boyfriend, had a job monitoring Allied radio broadcasts,
and he would pass on reports of Allied advances and
(28:58):
victories to Iva, which she would then share with the POW's,
boosting their spirits.
Speaker 1 (29:04):
She took a significant risk.
Speaker 2 (29:06):
In smuggling in these goods and information, but the danger
did not stop her. In late June nineteen forty four,
Iva's closest colleague at NHK, Charles Cousins, had a heart attack.
He was sent to a POW hospital to recover. With
Cousins gone, Zero Hour began to change. More and more
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Japanese staffers replaced the POW staffers. Iva, concerned with the
more explicit propaganda content of the new Zero Hour, tried
to quit, but George Mitsushio, an American born Japanese citizen
and the new director of Zero Hour told her quote
she had better reconsider whether she could quit a program
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directly under the control of the Army simply for her
own personal reasons. Unable to officially leave and also needing
the money that the job paid, especially once the Danish
consul left Japan, Iva instead decided to miss as much
work as she could, using the American air raids as
(30:12):
an excuse. She frequently skipped broadcasting sessions and took weeks
off at a time, citing illnesses and family commitments. Her
colleagues at the station resented her absences and disliked Iva,
who they saw as unfriendly and pro American. There was
one bright spot amidst this turmoil. On April eighteenth, nineteen
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forty five, Iva and Philippe got married. Iva had converted
to Catholicism in order to marry Felippe, and the pair
were married in a Catholic ceremony. It was a beautiful day,
marred only by a bombing raid that sent the wedding
party running for shelter. After her marriage, Iva became even
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more determined to quit Zero Hour.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
But after a week.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
Of absences, an Army officer showed up at her door
and ordered her to report to work the next day.
Iva had heard from cousins and the other POWs about
the death threats from the army when they had tried
to resist helping with broadcasts. Frightened of the consequences, she
reluctantly continued her broadcasting work. On August fifteenth, nineteen forty five,
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Japan officially surrendered. Iva and Felipe were overjoyed, but an
Allied victory did not mean an immediate improvement in conditions.
Much of Tokyo had been destroyed in the war, and
food and other essential supplies were hard to obtain. When
Iva was contacted by Clark Lee and Terry Brundage with
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an offer of two thousand dollars for an exclusive interview
about her radio work, she could not refuse, and the
positive attention she got with soldiers asking for her autograph
was fun at first, but things quickly went awry. First,
Iva never received her promised payment. It turned out that
(32:11):
Brundage had offered the two thousand dollars without first receiving
the go ahead from Cosmopolitan magazine. When he wired his
boss to confirm the payment after his interview with Iva,
the magazine refused and then the Army came knocking. Iva
was detained for questioning by the American Counter Intelligence Corps
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on September fifth. Fortunately, after a day of questioning, the
counter Intelligence Corps or CIC, released Iva. The Army seemed satisfied,
so much so that ten days later, a sergeant from
the Army's Intelligence and Education Section asked Iva to help
him make a movie about her time as Tokyo Rose
(32:55):
to entertain soldiers. Iva agreed and gave soldiers on the
films her autograph. But a month later everything changed. On
October seventeenth, four officers from the CIC appeared at Iva
and Felipe's apartment. They told Iva that they needed to
ask her a few more questions and that it might
(33:17):
take a little bit, so she ought to pack a toothbrush.
Iva would not see her home again for more than
a year. The CIC officers escorted her to the military
prison in Yokohama. No one told Iva why she was
being held. She was not given a lawyer or allowed
to contact anyone outside the prison. She was interrogated about
(33:40):
her role in propaganda activities. After a month, Iva was
transported to Sugamu Prison, where the Allied forces were keeping
Japanese war criminals. Her cell was six feet by nine feet.
Iva tried again to ask for a lawyer to know
what charges she was being held on, to be granted
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a speedy trial all constitutional rights guaranteed to an American citizen,
but was denied. Messiah Duce notes the grim irony of
the situation outside the prison, quote, the Americans were hard
at work teaching the Japanese how to be democratic. Only
two weeks before the CIC had arrested Iva without a
(34:24):
warrant or an explanation, MacArthur's headquarters had ordered the abolition
of restraints on political freedoms. Over the course of her
year in Sugamo, Iva was questioned by the CIC and
the FBI. The contents of these interrogations were sent to
the American Occupation's General headquarters. In April nineteen forty six.
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An internal memo from the Army's Legal section concluded that
Iva had not violated any articles of war, but recommended
that her case be sent to the Justice Department to
review if she had broken any civilian laws. The Army
duly passed the file onto the Justice Department. Five months later,
the department reported that the evidence of treason was inadequate
(35:11):
and recommended that Iva be released. On October sixth, the
War Department notified the military in Tokyo that Iva could
be let go. For some reason, she was not released
for three more weeks. On the morning of October twenty fifth,
Iva was notified that she could go home. That evening,
(35:32):
reporters gathered outside Sugamo to take pictures of her.
Speaker 1 (35:35):
As she left.
Speaker 2 (35:37):
Iva returned to an outside world even more barren than
the one she had left. Felipe had been scraping by
on his meeker salary, but the couple was living hand
to mouth. Iva decided that they should go to America
right away. Felippe urged caution, saying that she should wait
for the press attention to die down, but Iva was resolved.
(36:00):
In December nineteen forty six, she went to the American
Consulate and applied to be repatriated. The consulate once again
confusingly told her that her citizenship was unclear. She would
need to prove that she was an American citizen, despite
having just been jailed for potentially committing treason against America.
(36:22):
Iva spent the next five months gathering documentation of her
citizenship then presented it to the Consulate in May nineteen
forty seven. They warned her that the review might take months. Indeed,
the Department of Justice only notified the State Department on
October twentieth that they had no objections to Iva receiving
a passport. Iva was now pregnant with her first child
(36:46):
due in January. She hoped to return to America in
time to raise her child there. The DOJ's approval should
have sealed the deal. Unfortunately, news of Iva's potential return
caught the press's attention, and all of a sudden, she
faced a title wave of criticism. The powerful radio host
(37:07):
and newspaper columnist Walter Winchell, who was interestingly enough a
good friend to Confidential Magazine, which we discussed in episode five,
began a crusade against Iva. He told his millions of
listeners that Iva was a trader. The American Legion, a
large veterans organization, joined his cause, though not all its
(37:30):
members agreed with Winschell's conclusions about Iva. As public pressure mounted,
the Justice Department decided to re review the case. Politics
also played a factor in this decision. It was a
presidential electioneer and President Truman's popularity was down. His administration
had been accused of being soft on traders and communists.
(37:54):
Pursuing the Tokyo Rose case could be away. Attorney General
Tom Clark seems to have thought of toughening up the
administration's image. There was another point too. The United States
government had committed an unthinkable violation of human rights when
it had incarcerated thousands of Japanese Americans. They had justified
(38:16):
their actions by claiming that these Japanese Americans were security risks. However,
no Japanese American was ever convicted of serious acts of
espionage or sabotage. By trying Iva, the government could try
to retroactively prove Executive Order nine h sixty six right.
(38:37):
Harry Brundage, who was now working for a newspaper in Nashville,
also jumped back on the case. His career was going
downhill due in part to his alcoholism, and he wanted
another scoop, so he traveled to Tokyo alongside a DOJ
investigator to look into the case. In the meantime, Iva
(38:58):
was suffering a personal travel. On January fifth, she delivered
her baby, a son, but he was stillborn. Iva and
Felippe were heartbroken. Iva's physical health suffered, and she was
bedbound for much of the first part of nineteen forty eight.
On August twenty sixth, c IC officers again showed up
(39:21):
at Iva's apartment in Tokyo. They arrested her again, this
time on charges of treason, and sent her back to
Sugamo prison. Iva told the press that she welcomed a
trial because it would finally be a chance to clear
her name. She was confident that the truth would come out.
On September ninth, Iva was put into a military transport
(39:45):
ship bound for San Francisco. She arrived on September twenty
fifth and set foot on American soil for the first
time in seven years. When Iva and her escort arrived
at the US Commissioner's office where she would reigned, an
unexpected reunion occurred. Standing in the office were Iva's father, June,
(40:07):
and her younger sister June. Like Iva, they had suffered
during the war. The family had been forced into a
prison camp. In May nineteen forty two. While at a
prison camp near Ti Larry, California, flewmy to Gory's fragile
health pushed to the breaking point by the inhumane conditions
(40:29):
at the camp, shattered and she died. Iva had last
seen her mother in the summer of nineteen forty one,
and she would never see her again. She had not
even had a chance to say goodbye. The remaining te
Gorris had been sent to a prison camp at Hila
River in the blazingly hot Arizona Desert. In nineteen forty three,
(40:53):
people incarcerated at Hila River were given the option of
leaving the camp on the condition that they moved to
a new part of the country, away from the West Coast.
The Tagoris chose to go to Chicago. There, June had
again become a shopkeeper. June was horrified by his daughter's appearance.
(41:14):
When he had last seen her, she had been a plump,
bubbly twenty five year old. Now thirty two, Iva was pale,
drawn and so skinny that her clothes nearly fell off
her body. But still June was delighted to see his
beloved Iva. They hugged, and then June told her, girl,
(41:38):
I'm proud of you. You didn't change your stripes. The
tiger can't change his stripes, but a person can so easily.
Iva was relieved to know that her family believed in
and supported her. June would fight tirelessly on his daughter's behalf.
He was not alone in this fight. For the first
(42:01):
time since Iva had been detained by the military police
in the fall of nineteen forty five, she finally had
a lawyer, Wayne M.
Speaker 1 (42:11):
Collins.
Speaker 2 (42:13):
Collins, a passionate civil rights attorney, had represented Fred Korematsu
in his ultimately unsuccessful Supreme Court battle to have the
Japanese American prison camps declared unconstitutional. Collins offered his services
to Iva for free, and would eventually even use his
personal funds to cover some of the trial expenses. On
(42:35):
October eighth, nineteen forty eight, a grand jury charged Iva
with eight overt acts of treason, with quote treasonable intent
and for the purpose of and with the intent in
her to adhere and give aid and comfort to the
Imperial Japanese government. Though the prospect of a trial was frightening,
(42:59):
Iva was content. She believed that a trial would finally
make her innocence clear to the public and allow her
to move on with her life. But she would soon
find out that things would not be so simple. In
the next episode, we'll cover the trial and its aftermath.
(43:21):
Thank you for listening to History on Trial. My main
source for this episode was Messiah Duce's book Tokyo Rose,
Orphan of the Pacific. For a full bibliography as well
as a transcript of this episode with citations, please visit
our website History on Trial podcast dot com. History on
(43:42):
Trial is written and hosted by me Mira Hayward. The
show is edited and produced by Jesse Funk, with supervising
producer Trevor Yung and executive producers Dana Schwartz, Alexander Williams,
Matt Frederick, and Mira Hayward. Learn more about the show
at History Trial podcast dot com and follow us on
(44:03):
Instagram at History on Trial and on Twitter at Underscore
History on Trial.
Speaker 1 (44:10):
Find more podcasts
Speaker 2 (44:11):
From iHeartRadio by visiting the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
You're listening to History on Trial, a production of iHeart
Podcasts Listener Discretion.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Advised Hi History on Trial Listeners. Today's story will come
in two parts. This episode will cover the lead up
to the trial, and the second episode will cover the
trial and its aftermath. Thanks for listening. Clark Lee and
(00:28):
Harry Brendage couldn't believe their luck. Out of all the
reporters in Japan, they were about to break one of
the biggest stories of the summer. It was August nineteen
forty five, only weeks after Japan's surrender in World War Two,
and Tokyo was flooded with journalists. All the reporters Lee
(00:52):
remembered were going after the same three stories. They wanted
to get an interview with Hideki Tojo, Japan's leader during
the war. They wanted to describe the wreckage of Tokyo,
and perhaps most of all, they wanted to identify Tokyo Rose.
(01:14):
Tokyo Rose, the name conjured glamour, romance, intrigue. Tokyo Rose
was famous all across the Pacific, from Alaska to Borneo,
a legend amongst soldiers and sailors alike. For two years,
as Allied forces fought their way across the ocean and islands.
(01:38):
Tokyo Rose had kept them company. No matter how remote
their ship or how wretched their conditions, Tokyo Rose had
been there. Her mythological status and far reach might make
her seem supernatural, but it was simpler than that. Tokyo
(01:58):
Rose was a radio host. Throughout World War Two, the
Japanese Broadcasting Corporation or NHK short for Nipoon Hoso Kyo Kai,
had broadcast English language propaganda radio programs throughout the Pacific.
Many of these programs used a female broadcaster. As the
(02:20):
war wore on, these broadcasters became legendary, and they were
often grouped together under a nickname Tokyo Rose. American press
reports depicted Tokyo Rose as a racialized fem fatale, a seductive,
exotic siren luring Allied Gis to abandon their cause. The
(02:43):
Gis themselves mostly had a less dramatic view of Tokyo Rose.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
Many thought she was just good company.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
She played popular music on her broadcasts, tease the men
and crack jokes. Many Gis, instead of seeing Tokyo Row
as a propaganda pusher, thought that she boosted morale the
Navy even issued Tokyo Rose a tongue in cheek citation,
saying Tokyo Rose has persistently entertained the men and inspired
(03:14):
them to a greater determination than ever to get the
war over quickly, which explains why they are now driving
onward to Tokyo itself, so that soon they will be
able to thank Tokyo Rose in person. Now that the
war had ended, the press was determined to find the
real Tokyo Rose, not to thank her, of course, but
(03:38):
to get an exclusive interview with her. When Clark Lee,
a reporter for Hearst's International news service, and Harry Brundage,
a writer at Cosmopolitan magazine, arrived in Japan in August
nineteen forty five, they decided to team up and find
Tokyo Rose first.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
The competition was stiff.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
On August thirtieth, a group of reporters burst into the
NHK offices and began interrogating staff members there about Tokyo
Rose's real identity. The NHK employees claimed to have no
idea what they were talking about. People began wondering if
Tokyo Rose really existed. On August thirty first, an article
(04:22):
from the associated press claimed that she was real, but
acknowledged that she was more than one person. Lee and
Brendage were beginning to get discouraged. They reached out to
an old friend of Lee's, Leslie Nakashima. Nakashima, an American
of Japanese descent, had better luck at the NHK office.
(04:42):
Kenkichi Oki, an NHK employee, confirmed that there were five
or six women who had broadcast in English during the
war from the Tokyo station, but Oki would only give
Nakashima one name, Iva Toguri Dakino. Excited, Nakashima called up
Lee and Brundage to report his progress. Brundage and Lee
(05:05):
told Nakashima that they would offer two thousand dollars or
close to thirty five thousand in today's money, for an
exclusive interview with Iva. When Nakashima visited Iva on September first,
she was reluctant to give an interview. Her husband, Felipe,
was also skeptical, but Nakashima told them that Iva's name
(05:27):
was already public. She was going to be the focus
of press attention anyways, so why not get paid for it?
And the Dacuinos needed the money. Post war, Japan was
economically devastated, and the pay that Nakashima was offering was
close to three hundred times what Iva made in a month,
so Iva agreed to speak with Lee and Brandage.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
As the two reporters.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
Sat in their hotel room awaiting Iva's arrival, they buzzed
with anticipation.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
They had identified Tokyo Rose. They had gotten to her first.
Now all that.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
Remained was seeing the woman behind the voice, and then
Iva came through the door. Whatever Lee and Brundage had
been expecting, she wasn't it. Instead of a glamorous siren,
Lee and Brundage found a tiny young woman. Iva was
barely five feet tall. Years of malnutrition during the war
(06:28):
made her seem even smaller. She wore her thick black
hair in pigtails. The reporters thought she looked maybe twenty
years old. In reality, she was twenty nine. She had
a forthright manner and unexpectedly a rather unremarkable voice. Things
only got stranger from there. If Lee and Brundage had
(06:51):
expected to find a die hard Japanese patriot, they could
not have been more wrong. Iva, it emerged, was an
American citizen. Her parents were both Japanese, but Iva herself
had been born and raised in California. In fact, she
barely spoke Japanese. Iva claimed that she had gotten stuck
(07:12):
in Japan when the war broke out while she was
visiting a sick relative there. She had been forced to
do the radio broadcast job to survive, She said. She
told the reporters that she was delighted America had won
the war, and that she had always believed they would.
This didn't make for a particularly compelling story, Lee and
(07:32):
Brendage thought. When Lee published his first story on Iva
on September third, nineteen forty five, he mentioned that quote
circumstances had forced her into broadcasting, but he also added
a little drama by raising the question of treason. Iva,
Lee wrote, does not feel that she was a traitor
(07:55):
to the US for the job of trying to make
American troops homesick. Iva had never even considered the question
of treason, nor was she concerned about the question now.
In truth, the United States government also did not consider
the question seriously. After briefly questioning Iva, the Army let
her go and even asked her to participate in a
(08:17):
film about her time as Tokyo rose, but things were
about to take a drastic turn. Three years after Clark
Lee and Harry Brundage first interviewed Iva, to Gorri Daquino,
she would be standing trial in San Francisco, accused of treason.
(08:38):
In a shocking reversal largely driven by public pressure and
political motives, the United States Justice Department was pursuing Iva,
and they were determined to convict her, no matter the
illegal lengths they would have to go to do so.
(08:59):
Welcome to History on Trial. I'm your host, Mira Hayward.
This week the United States v Iva Takori Dakino. Iva
Ikuko Toguri was the first American citizen in her family.
Her father, June, came to the United States from Japan
(09:22):
in eighteen ninety nine. On a trip back to Japan
in nineteen oh seven, he married Fumi Imuro, but had
had to return to America shortly after. The two spent
the first years of their marriage separated by an ocean,
with June only able to visit several times. Their first child, Fred,
(09:43):
was born in Japan, but in nineteen thirteen Fumi and
Fred were able to join June permanently. In America, and
thus their second child, Iva, was born in Los Angeles
in nineteen sixteen. In a fact that would seem too
on the nose if you scripted it, Iva was born
on July fourth. June to Goody added Iva to his
(10:06):
family register in Japan, which made her legally a Japanese
citizen too, But in nineteen thirty two, after Japan invaded Manchuria,
he took the advice of Japanese American community leaders and
removed Iva and her two younger sisters from the family register,
making the three girls entirely American citizens. Iva and her
(10:28):
sisters were nise, a term for the American born children
of Japanese immigrants. The Taguris moved frequently around southern California
while June searched for work, but by nineteen twenty eight
he had saved enough money to open a small store
in Los Angeles. It was a happy childhood. Iva and
her siblings attended school, helped out at their father's store,
(10:52):
and tended to their mother, who had diabetes and high
blood pressure. June wanted his children to assimilate to white
America culture, though the Tagories occasionally spoke Japanese at home.
And celebrated some Japanese holidays. June encouraged his children to
speak English and public, observe American holidays, and play mainly
(11:13):
with white children. Iva grew into a sporty, outgoing, good
humored teenager. She wanted to be a doctor, and in
nineteen thirty four she enrolled in Compton Junior College. After
six months, she transferred to UCLA, where she studied zoology.
She loved her coursework, choosing to spend her school holidays
(11:35):
out in the field on research trips with professors. She
also loved college life and attended football games and played
tennis with friends. After graduating in nineteen forty, I have
a plan to pursue graduate work in medicine. She started
taking more zoology and pre medical courses. The future seemed
(11:55):
wide open for her, but in the summer of nineteen
forty one, a letter changed everything. That June, the Tagoris
received a letter from Fumi's brother in law in Japan.
He wrote that Fumi's sister Shizu, was gravely ill and
wished to see Fumi while she still could after more
(12:17):
than thirty years apart. Fumi herself was too ill to
make the trip, so the Tagories decided to send Iva
in her place. Iva was not happy about this plan,
but agreed to travel to Japan. In July, June wrote
to the State Department in Washington to apply for a
passport for Iva. Unlike today, passports were not required for
(12:41):
international travel at the time, but June wanted to make
sure that Iva's documents were all in order. However, as
the date of Iva's departure grew closer, no passport arrived.
June got in contact with the Immigration office in Los Angeles,
who told him that Iva could substitute a notarized stificate
of identification for her passport and then apply for a
(13:03):
passport for the American consulate in Tokyo. However, the passport
requirements were about to change in ways that would profoundly
affect Iva's life. In November nineteen forty one, the State
Department declared that, due to the advent of the war,
all international travel to or from the United States after
(13:26):
January fifteenth, nineteen forty two, would now require a passport.
Iva's trip to Japan in the summer of nineteen forty
one would not be impacted by this change, but her
plan returned to America scheduled for the spring of nineteen
forty two would be impossible without a passport, and despite
(13:48):
the Immigration Office's recommendation, getting a passport while abroad would
turn out to be extremely challenging. Ignorant of this change,
Iva departed for Japan on July fifth, nineteen forty one,
a day after her twenty fifth birthday. Nearly three weeks later,
(14:08):
on July twenty fourth, Iva disembarked at Yokohama and met
her uncle and cousins for the first time. Her mother's
family was welcoming and friendly, but Iva felt ill at ease.
Japan impressed me as very, very strange. I've remembered all
the customs were strange to me. The food was entirely different,
(14:32):
the apparel was different, the houses were different. I felt
like a perfect stranger, and the Japanese considered me very queer.
She was shocked by the poverty she saw in Japan.
The country had been at war with China for four
years at this point, and the economy was devastated. Food
and other essential resources were scarce. After years of speaking
(14:57):
mainly English, her spoken Japanese was a extremely rusty, and
she could not read or write at all. Iva also
had a hard time communicating with her family back in America.
Tensions between Japan and the United States steadily increased over
the summer and fall of nineteen forty one, although Iva
was largely unaware of just how bad things were because
(15:20):
she could not read Japanese newspapers and her relatives tried
to protect her from the news. In early August, Iva
went to the American Consulate to apply for a passport.
The consulate told her that they would first have to
verify her identity with the State Department in Washington, which
could take some time. By November, Iva still hadn't heard
(15:42):
anything from the consulate and she was becoming increasingly homesick.
At the end of the month, she made an expensive
international telephone call and begged her father to buy her
passage home. June, concerned about Iva's well being, agreed and
said he would work on getting her a ticket, But
when Iva's family contacted the steamship office, they learned that
(16:05):
she would need a passport to return to America. Iva
tried to speed things up the consulate. The consulate told
her to get a new letter of identification, but this
paperwork would in turn require several other forms, scrambling to
get the paperwork together before the ship left. On December tewod,
Iva encountered obstacle after obstacle, the red tape was insurmountable
(16:29):
and Iva missed the ship, and then five days later,
the Japanese attacked the US naval base at Pearl Harbor.
All travel between Japan and America was immediately shut down.
Two days after Pearl Harbor, a man from the Japanese
(16:50):
Special Security Police showed up at Iva's family's home. The
officer told Iva that she needed to renounce her American citizenship.
When Iva refused, the man left, but then returned every
day for the next two weeks to continue to pressure her.
Iva was one of the approximately ten thousand Japanese Americans
(17:12):
who were stuck in Japan after Pearl Harbor. Many of them,
like Iva, were nise second generation Japanese Americans. It was
extremely difficult for these people who found themselves caught between
two countries who were both suspicious of them. In Japan,
they were pressured to give up their American citizenship by
(17:33):
the military and the Special Police. It was difficult to
obtain a ration card or get a job while still
holding American citizenship, so many ultimately renounced that citizenship. Iva, however,
held out. Things were no easier for Japanese Americans in America.
(17:54):
In February nineteen forty two, President Franklin Roosevelt issued Executive
Order nine six six. This order authorized the removal of
Japanese Americans, both foreign and American born, from any quote
military areas, which came to be defined as the.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
Entire West Coast.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
This order was based on suspicion that Japanese Americans might
collaborate with Japan. Between March and August nineteen forty two,
more than one hundred thousand Japanese Americans were forcibly removed
from their homes and sent to prison camps, where conditions
were horrible. The mass removal and incarceration of these people,
(18:37):
two thirds of whom were American citizens, was a sickening
violation of their human rights and civil liberties, and is
an enduring stain on American history. When Iva heard that
her family had been sent to a prison camp in Arizona,
she did not believe that such a thing could happen
in America. She thought that the story be Japanese propaganda.
(19:02):
In February, Iva had been delighted to learn that the
Swiss Consulate was organizing a repatriationship for Americans in Japan.
She applied for a spot, but when the Swiss Consulate
telegraphed the State Department to confirm Iva's citizenship, the department
replied that there were doubts about her status. These doubts
(19:23):
are impossible to explain. Iva had been born in the
United States and had never left the country for the
first twenty five years of her life. Thanks to the
State departments in action, Iva could not get on the ship,
and things were only getting more difficult in Japan. The
harassment by the military and secret police only intensified the
(19:45):
longer Iva refused to give up her American citizenship. In June,
she decided to leave her uncle and aunt's home because
she didn't want her family to suffer for their connection
with her. Iva now had to pay rent at a
boarding house, but the money that she had taken to Japan,
which was only meant to cover six months, was fast
(20:06):
running out. Struggling to make ends meet, she tried to
find a job. It wasn't easy, no one wanted to
hire American citizens, but after a three month search, Iva
managed to get a part time position at the Domain
News agency. The late night schedule was miserable and the
pay was barely enough to cover her rent. By the
(20:29):
time the next repatriationship left in September nineteen forty two,
Iva had exhausted her meager savings and could not buy
a ticket. It seemed that she was stuck in Japan.
But there was one silver lining of that difficult summer.
In mid July, Iva met a new hire at Dome
(20:50):
named Felipe Dakino, of Portuguese and Japanese descent. Felipe had
grown up in Japan and attended Catholic schools, so he
spoke fluent English. Iva was delighted to have someone to
talk to, and the pair quickly bonded over their shared
support for the American cause, something no one else around
(21:10):
them agreed with. Once Felipe even got into a fistfight
with a colleague over pro American remarks Iva had made.
A year later, in June nineteen forty three, Iva was hospitalized.
She was extremely weak from lack of food and essential nutrients.
The military police had at one point blocked her from
(21:32):
getting a ration card when she continued to hold on
to her American citizenship. Iva eventually recovered, but her medical
bills put her in debt, and she decided to find
another part time job to pay back her bills. In
late August, Iva was hired as a typist at NHK.
Her job was to type up the broadcast scripts and
(21:55):
correct grammatical mistakes. There was quite a bit of work
for Iva to do in this regard. NHK, like many
other Japanese news agencies, had been co opted into the
war effort. The agency now produced propaganda under the command
of Major Shikitsugu Suneishi. Suneishi had no propaganda experience, and
(22:18):
he and his subordinates spoke limited English, so their broadcasts
were littered with errors. To try to fix this problem,
NHK began to hire native English speakers to serve as
radio announcers. Suneyishi also forced prisoners of war with radio
experience to participate in his programming. One of the first
(22:39):
POWs brought in was Major Charles Cousins, an Englishman who
had worked as a radio announcer in Australia. Cousins had
initially refused to help the propaganda effort and was subsequently
shipped off to a brutal labor camp. Suneishi eventually brought
Cousins back to Tokyo and threatened the man with death
(23:00):
if he did not participate. Cousins reluctantly agreed to work
at NHK. He was soon joined by two other POWs,
Norman Reyes and Wallace Ince, who had been similarly coerced
with death threats. The men were put in charge of
a program called Zero Hour, which broadcast every evening. The
(23:22):
Japanese had conceived of Zero Hour as a way to
lure allied gis into listening to more of their programming,
so they told the POWs to make Zero Hour appealing
to Western listeners. The POWs realized that they could use
this premise to their advantage. As the historian Messiah Deuce
(23:42):
writes in Tokyo Rows Orphan of the Pacific, the men
quote made Zero Hour into an entertainment program that would
boost GI morale rather than destroy it. They did their
best to downplay propaganda, reading up jects actionable news items
hurriedly or in a joking tone of voice. Zero Hour
(24:05):
quickly became a hit. In November nineteen forty three, Suniishi
decided to expand Zero Hour The POWs were concerned that
an expansion would dilute their control of the program and
thus their ability to sabotage the propaganda content, but Cousins
had an idea. When Iva to Gory had arrived at
(24:27):
NHK in August, she had immediately tried to befriend the POWs,
grateful to have more pro American English speaking contacts. The
men were initially suspicious, but once they realized how sincere
she was, they became friendly. Iva had even begun smuggling food, medicine,
(24:47):
and warm clothing for the POWs. These items were gratefully
received by the POWs, who lived in wretched conditions at
bunka Camp, a prison specifically for captured men, were working
on broadcasts. When Cousins was ordered to expand a zero hour,
he decided to find staff who would aid in his
(25:10):
sabotage efforts. He had to be careful with who he trusted,
and in a station full of the enemy, there were
few options. But that's when he thought of Iva. He
could bring her on, and then he had an even
better idea. They needed a new announcer for the program.
(25:33):
The station had many talented female broadcasters, but Cousins didn't
want a talented broadcaster. He wanted a person with a
bad voice, a comic voice, a voice that would do
anything but sell propaganda. And Iva, whose voice would be
described as crow like, rough, and hacking, was just such
(25:58):
a person. Iva was reluctant to join Zero Hour, but
once Cousins explained what he and the other POWs were
trying to do with the program, she agreed to become
an announcer. Sometime in mid November nineteen forty three, Iva
Taguri sat down in front of a microphone at the
(26:19):
NHK offices and broadcast for the very first time. It
was a broadcast that would help birth a legend and
haunt Iva for the rest of her life. We're going
to take a little break now. When we return, we'll
pick Iva up in the broadcasting studio. Zero Hour came
(26:45):
on air every night at six pm Tokyo time. The
program ran for an hour, always following the same schedule.
First music, then messages home from Allied POW's, then Iva's segment.
Iva did not want to use her real name in
her broadcasts, so Cousin suggested a nickname. He proposed Anne,
(27:09):
short for announcer, and later added orphan, in a cheeky
nod to the Japanese propaganda term for Allied sailors Orphans
of the Pacific. The name referenced the fact that, like
these gis Iva I was stuck far away from home.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
Orphan.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
Anne's portion of Zero Hour lasted fifteen to twenty minutes,
but it mainly consisted of music. Iva only spoke for
two to three minutes, always reading directly from Cousins's script.
The tone of her announcements was always playful greetings everybody
went one script, How are my victims this evening already
(27:49):
for a vicious assault on your morale? The vicious assault,
in this case, being playing popular American music. After Iva's
segment came news segments, then more music than a sign off.
She would come into the NHK studio for two to
three hours every evening to prepare for and broadcast the show,
(28:09):
except for Sundays, when another female announcer replaced her. During
the day, Iva worked as a secretary for the Danish
consul in Tokyo. She had had to quit her job
at Domain after getting into a vicious argument over the
war with her Japanese colleagues.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
There.
Speaker 2 (28:26):
Iva became close to the Danish consul and his family,
and they generously shared some of their special diplomatic rations
with her, including.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
Matches, soap, and sugar.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
Iva would trade these valuable items for food and medicine,
which she then smuggled to the POW's working at NHK.
She also brought the POW's good news from abroad. Felipe Jaquino,
now Iva's boyfriend, had a job monitoring Allied radio broadcasts,
and he would pass on reports of Allied advances and
(28:58):
victories to Iva, which she would then share with the POW's,
boosting their spirits.
Speaker 1 (29:04):
She took a significant risk.
Speaker 2 (29:06):
In smuggling in these goods and information, but the danger
did not stop her. In late June nineteen forty four,
Iva's closest colleague at NHK, Charles Cousins, had a heart attack.
He was sent to a POW hospital to recover. With
Cousins gone, Zero Hour began to change. More and more
(29:29):
Japanese staffers replaced the POW staffers. Iva, concerned with the
more explicit propaganda content of the new Zero Hour, tried
to quit, but George Mitsushio, an American born Japanese citizen
and the new director of Zero Hour told her quote
she had better reconsider whether she could quit a program
(29:51):
directly under the control of the Army simply for her
own personal reasons. Unable to officially leave and also needing
the money that the job paid, especially once the Danish
consul left Japan, Iva instead decided to miss as much
work as she could, using the American air raids as
(30:12):
an excuse. She frequently skipped broadcasting sessions and took weeks
off at a time, citing illnesses and family commitments. Her
colleagues at the station resented her absences and disliked Iva,
who they saw as unfriendly and pro American. There was
one bright spot amidst this turmoil. On April eighteenth, nineteen
(30:36):
forty five, Iva and Philippe got married. Iva had converted
to Catholicism in order to marry Felippe, and the pair
were married in a Catholic ceremony. It was a beautiful day,
marred only by a bombing raid that sent the wedding
party running for shelter. After her marriage, Iva became even
(30:57):
more determined to quit Zero Hour.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
But after a week.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
Of absences, an Army officer showed up at her door
and ordered her to report to work the next day.
Iva had heard from cousins and the other POWs about
the death threats from the army when they had tried
to resist helping with broadcasts. Frightened of the consequences, she
reluctantly continued her broadcasting work. On August fifteenth, nineteen forty five,
(31:26):
Japan officially surrendered. Iva and Felipe were overjoyed, but an
Allied victory did not mean an immediate improvement in conditions.
Much of Tokyo had been destroyed in the war, and
food and other essential supplies were hard to obtain. When
Iva was contacted by Clark Lee and Terry Brundage with
(31:49):
an offer of two thousand dollars for an exclusive interview
about her radio work, she could not refuse, and the
positive attention she got with soldiers asking for her autograph
was fun at first, but things quickly went awry. First,
Iva never received her promised payment. It turned out that
(32:11):
Brundage had offered the two thousand dollars without first receiving
the go ahead from Cosmopolitan magazine. When he wired his
boss to confirm the payment after his interview with Iva,
the magazine refused and then the Army came knocking. Iva
was detained for questioning by the American Counter Intelligence Corps
(32:32):
on September fifth. Fortunately, after a day of questioning, the
counter Intelligence Corps or CIC, released Iva. The Army seemed satisfied,
so much so that ten days later, a sergeant from
the Army's Intelligence and Education Section asked Iva to help
him make a movie about her time as Tokyo Rose
(32:55):
to entertain soldiers. Iva agreed and gave soldiers on the
films her autograph. But a month later everything changed. On
October seventeenth, four officers from the CIC appeared at Iva
and Felipe's apartment. They told Iva that they needed to
ask her a few more questions and that it might
(33:17):
take a little bit, so she ought to pack a toothbrush.
Iva would not see her home again for more than
a year. The CIC officers escorted her to the military
prison in Yokohama. No one told Iva why she was
being held. She was not given a lawyer or allowed
to contact anyone outside the prison. She was interrogated about
(33:40):
her role in propaganda activities. After a month, Iva was
transported to Sugamu Prison, where the Allied forces were keeping
Japanese war criminals. Her cell was six feet by nine feet.
Iva tried again to ask for a lawyer to know
what charges she was being held on, to be granted
(34:01):
a speedy trial all constitutional rights guaranteed to an American citizen,
but was denied. Messiah Duce notes the grim irony of
the situation outside the prison, quote, the Americans were hard
at work teaching the Japanese how to be democratic. Only
two weeks before the CIC had arrested Iva without a
(34:24):
warrant or an explanation, MacArthur's headquarters had ordered the abolition
of restraints on political freedoms. Over the course of her
year in Sugamo, Iva was questioned by the CIC and
the FBI. The contents of these interrogations were sent to
the American Occupation's General headquarters. In April nineteen forty six.
(34:48):
An internal memo from the Army's Legal section concluded that
Iva had not violated any articles of war, but recommended
that her case be sent to the Justice Department to
review if she had broken any civilian laws. The Army
duly passed the file onto the Justice Department. Five months later,
the department reported that the evidence of treason was inadequate
(35:11):
and recommended that Iva be released. On October sixth, the
War Department notified the military in Tokyo that Iva could
be let go. For some reason, she was not released
for three more weeks. On the morning of October twenty fifth,
Iva was notified that she could go home. That evening,
(35:32):
reporters gathered outside Sugamo to take pictures of her.
Speaker 1 (35:35):
As she left.
Speaker 2 (35:37):
Iva returned to an outside world even more barren than
the one she had left. Felipe had been scraping by
on his meeker salary, but the couple was living hand
to mouth. Iva decided that they should go to America
right away. Felippe urged caution, saying that she should wait
for the press attention to die down, but Iva was resolved.
(36:00):
In December nineteen forty six, she went to the American
Consulate and applied to be repatriated. The consulate once again
confusingly told her that her citizenship was unclear. She would
need to prove that she was an American citizen, despite
having just been jailed for potentially committing treason against America.
(36:22):
Iva spent the next five months gathering documentation of her
citizenship then presented it to the Consulate in May nineteen
forty seven. They warned her that the review might take months. Indeed,
the Department of Justice only notified the State Department on
October twentieth that they had no objections to Iva receiving
a passport. Iva was now pregnant with her first child
(36:46):
due in January. She hoped to return to America in
time to raise her child there. The DOJ's approval should
have sealed the deal. Unfortunately, news of Iva's potential return
caught the press's attention, and all of a sudden, she
faced a title wave of criticism. The powerful radio host
(37:07):
and newspaper columnist Walter Winchell, who was interestingly enough a
good friend to Confidential Magazine, which we discussed in episode five,
began a crusade against Iva. He told his millions of
listeners that Iva was a trader. The American Legion, a
large veterans organization, joined his cause, though not all its
(37:30):
members agreed with Winschell's conclusions about Iva. As public pressure mounted,
the Justice Department decided to re review the case. Politics
also played a factor in this decision. It was a
presidential electioneer and President Truman's popularity was down. His administration
had been accused of being soft on traders and communists.
(37:54):
Pursuing the Tokyo Rose case could be away. Attorney General
Tom Clark seems to have thought of toughening up the
administration's image. There was another point too. The United States
government had committed an unthinkable violation of human rights when
it had incarcerated thousands of Japanese Americans. They had justified
(38:16):
their actions by claiming that these Japanese Americans were security risks. However,
no Japanese American was ever convicted of serious acts of
espionage or sabotage. By trying Iva, the government could try
to retroactively prove Executive Order nine h sixty six right.
(38:37):
Harry Brundage, who was now working for a newspaper in Nashville,
also jumped back on the case. His career was going
downhill due in part to his alcoholism, and he wanted
another scoop, so he traveled to Tokyo alongside a DOJ
investigator to look into the case. In the meantime, Iva
(38:58):
was suffering a personal travel. On January fifth, she delivered
her baby, a son, but he was stillborn. Iva and
Felippe were heartbroken. Iva's physical health suffered, and she was
bedbound for much of the first part of nineteen forty eight.
On August twenty sixth, c IC officers again showed up
(39:21):
at Iva's apartment in Tokyo. They arrested her again, this
time on charges of treason, and sent her back to
Sugamo prison. Iva told the press that she welcomed a
trial because it would finally be a chance to clear
her name. She was confident that the truth would come out.
On September ninth, Iva was put into a military transport
(39:45):
ship bound for San Francisco. She arrived on September twenty
fifth and set foot on American soil for the first
time in seven years. When Iva and her escort arrived
at the US Commissioner's office where she would reigned, an
unexpected reunion occurred. Standing in the office were Iva's father, June,
(40:07):
and her younger sister June. Like Iva, they had suffered
during the war. The family had been forced into a
prison camp. In May nineteen forty two. While at a
prison camp near Ti Larry, California, flewmy to Gory's fragile
health pushed to the breaking point by the inhumane conditions
(40:29):
at the camp, shattered and she died. Iva had last
seen her mother in the summer of nineteen forty one,
and she would never see her again. She had not
even had a chance to say goodbye. The remaining te
Gorris had been sent to a prison camp at Hila
River in the blazingly hot Arizona Desert. In nineteen forty three,
(40:53):
people incarcerated at Hila River were given the option of
leaving the camp on the condition that they moved to
a new part of the country, away from the West Coast.
The Tagoris chose to go to Chicago. There, June had
again become a shopkeeper. June was horrified by his daughter's appearance.
(41:14):
When he had last seen her, she had been a plump,
bubbly twenty five year old. Now thirty two, Iva was pale,
drawn and so skinny that her clothes nearly fell off
her body. But still June was delighted to see his
beloved Iva. They hugged, and then June told her, girl,
(41:38):
I'm proud of you. You didn't change your stripes. The
tiger can't change his stripes, but a person can so easily.
Iva was relieved to know that her family believed in
and supported her. June would fight tirelessly on his daughter's behalf.
He was not alone in this fight. For the first
(42:01):
time since Iva had been detained by the military police
in the fall of nineteen forty five, she finally had
a lawyer, Wayne M.
Speaker 1 (42:11):
Collins.
Speaker 2 (42:13):
Collins, a passionate civil rights attorney, had represented Fred Korematsu
in his ultimately unsuccessful Supreme Court battle to have the
Japanese American prison camps declared unconstitutional. Collins offered his services
to Iva for free, and would eventually even use his
personal funds to cover some of the trial expenses. On
(42:35):
October eighth, nineteen forty eight, a grand jury charged Iva
with eight overt acts of treason, with quote treasonable intent
and for the purpose of and with the intent in
her to adhere and give aid and comfort to the
Imperial Japanese government. Though the prospect of a trial was frightening,
(42:59):
Iva was content. She believed that a trial would finally
make her innocence clear to the public and allow her
to move on with her life. But she would soon
find out that things would not be so simple. In
the next episode, we'll cover the trial and its aftermath.
(43:21):
Thank you for listening to History on Trial. My main
source for this episode was Messiah Duce's book Tokyo Rose,
Orphan of the Pacific. For a full bibliography as well
as a transcript of this episode with citations, please visit
our website History on Trial podcast dot com. History on
(43:42):
Trial is written and hosted by me Mira Hayward. The
show is edited and produced by Jesse Funk, with supervising
producer Trevor Yung and executive producers Dana Schwartz, Alexander Williams,
Matt Frederick, and Mira Hayward. Learn more about the show
at History Trial podcast dot com and follow us on
(44:03):
Instagram at History on Trial and on Twitter at Underscore
History on Trial.
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