Volume 15 Number 015 Tokyo Rose – Legend and Fact

Lead: In 1977, one of the last acts of President Gerald Ford was the pardon of Iva Toguri D’Aquino. During World War II, her broadcasts to troops in the Pacific, earned her their disdain and the humorous name, “Tokyo Rose.”

Intro.: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts.

Content: Iva Toguri was born to Japanese immigrants in Los Angeles in 1916. She was a graduate of UCLA and a patriotic American citizen with plans to become a doctor. At the request of her mother, Iva visited Japan to care for an ailing aunt in late 1941 and was caught, unable to return home after the United States declared war following the bombing of Pearl Harbor. She refused to renounce her citizenship and lived the perilous life of an enemy alien. Iva worked as a typist during the war and transferred in 1943 to Radio Tokyo.

One of the programs on that network was “Zero Hour,” an English-speaking propaganda broadcast designed to undermine morale of U.S. troops posted to the Pacific. Allied POWs with radio experience were forced by the Japanese government to participate in the propaganda effort by helping transmit a fool’s mixture of news and entertainment. Because she spoke English, Iva was recruited as one of the voices on the program. Her radio name was “Orphan Ann” – she was orphaned in Japan like American G.I.s were “orphans in the Pacific.” Ann was short for announcer. Iva was just one of a dozen female propaganda voices broadcast during the war. They were collectively known to the G.I.s, who weren’t fooled a bit, as “Tokyo Rose.” Rose, of course, was not a real person.

Iva and her peer POW colleagues began a conspiracy writing and speaking their “anti-American” banter with tongue buried firmly in cheek - disparaging on the surface, but salted with enough satire, subtleties and All-American double entendre, that they hoped it would have the opposite effect on troops - many of whom later testified that they considered the program a joke and enjoyed the music. From one of the broadcasts:

“Hiya, keeds. I mean all you poor abandoned soldiers, sailors and Marines vacationing on those lovely tropical islands. Gets a little hot now and then, doesn’t it?”

And from another.

“Reception OK? Well, it better be because this is all request night and I’ve got a pretty nice program for my favorite little family - the wandering bone-heads of the Pacific Islands.”

Then she would key up songs like, “Good Night Sweetheart,” “Love’s Old Sweet Song,” or “Speak to me of Love.”

After the war, with anti-Japanese sentiment at a fever pitch and whipped up by some veteran’s groups and by the fading radio personality, Walter Winchell, Iva was tried for treason as “Tokyo Rose.” The five year investigation and thirteen week trial was the costliest in U.S. government history to that time.

In a great miscarriage of justice driven by politics and hysteria, Iva was found guilty on one count of treason--that of speaking into a microphone concerning the loss of ships. She was fined and served six years in prison. Later, witnesses admitted they felt pressure to testify falsely against Iva.

By the 1970s she had many supporters who had studied her arrest, the judicial incompetence of the trial and her conviction, and they lobbied successfully for her pardon. In 2006, the World War II Veteran’s Committee bestowed its award for citizenship on Iva Toguri D’Aquino, Tokyo Rose.

Research assistance by Ann Johnson, at the University of Richmond, this is Dan Roberts. Resources

Duus, Masayo. Tokyo Rose: Orphan of the Pacific. New York: Kodansho International, 1979.

“FBI History: Famous Cases, Iva Toguri d’Aquino and ‘Tokyo Rose.’ ” Federal Bureau of Investigation. 24 February 2009 < http://www.fbi.gov/libref/historic/famcases/rose/rose.htm> .

Howe, Russell Warren. The Hunt for “Tokyo Rose.” Anthem, MD: Madison Books, 1990.

“A Rose is not a Rose.” On the Media. 23 February 2009 .