Iva Toguri D'Aquino
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Iva Toguri |
Iva Toguri D'Aquino (born
July 4,
1916) is frequently but erroneously identified as one of the
World War II propaganda-
radio hostesses dubbed
Tokyo Rose by
Allied soldiers. She was exonerated in the 1970's through the efforts of investigative journalists and pardoned by
U.S. President Gerald Ford.
Born
Ikuko Toguri in
Los Angeles, California,
United States, the daughter of
Japanese immigrants. Her father, Jun Toguri, had come to the U.S. in 1899, and her mother in 1913. Ikuko, who went by the name Iva, was a
Girl Scout as a child, and raised in the
Methodist religion. She attended
grammar schools in the town of
Calexico, California, and the city of
San Diego, California, before returning with her family to Los Angeles. There she finished grammar school, attended
high school, and graduated from the
University of California, Los Angeles with a degree in
Zoology. A registered
Republican, she then worked in her parents' shop.
On July 5, 1941, she sailed for Japan from
San Pedro, California, ostensbily to visit an ailing relative and to possibly study
medicine. The
U.S. State Department issued her a
Certificate of Identification; she did not have a
passport. That September in Japan, Toguri applied to the U.S. Vice Consul for a passport, stating she wished to return to the U.S. for permanent residence. Her request was forwarded to the State Department, but the answer had not returned by the
Attack on Pearl Harbor (
December 7,
1941), and she was declared an enemy alien in Japan.
Following American involvement in the
Pacific War, Toguri, like a number of other Americans in Japanese territory, was pressured by the
Japanese central government under
Hideki Tojo to renounce her
United States citizenship, which she refused. She gained work as a typist at a Japanese
news agency and eventually worked in a similar capacity for
Radio Tokyo.
In November 1943, Allied
prisoners of war forced to broadcast
propaganda selected her to host portions of one-hour the
radio show The Zero Hour. Under the
stage name "Orphan Anne" and possibly "Your Favorite Enemy, Anne", reportedy in reference to the
comic strip character Little Orphan Annie, Toguri performed in
comedy sketches and introduced
newcasts, with on-air speaking time of generally about 20 minutes. Though earning only 150
yen, or about $7, per month, she used some of her earnings to feed P.O.W.s.
[Siemaszko, Corky. New York [[Daily News (July 4, 2006): "Still not Tokyo Rose: Long free, at 90, she's imprisoned by a myth"] She married Felipe D'Aquino (last name sometimes given only as Aquino), a
Portuguese citizen of Japanese-Portuguese descent, on April 19, 1945. The marriage was registered with the Portuguese Consulate in Tokyo, with Toguri declining take her husband's citizenship.
After
Japan's unconditional surrender (
August 15,
1945), reporters Henry Brundidge and Clark Lee offered $250 — an act considered unethical
checkbook journalism by press associations and journalism professors — for the identity of Tokyo Rose. A monetarily tainted identification led to D'Aquino arrest, on September 5, 1945, in
Yokohama, but she was released, after a year in jail when the United States
Justice Department's
FBI found no evidence she had aided the Japanese
Axis forces,
[Ibid.] as did General
Douglas MacArthur's staff. As well, the American and
Australian P.O.W.s who wrote her scripts also assured her she had committed no wrongdoing.
The case-history at the FBI's
website states, "The FBI's investigation of Aquino's activities had covered a period of some five years. During the course of that investigation, the FBI had interviewed hundreds of former members of the U.S. Armed Forces who had served in the South Pacific during World War II, unearthed forgotten Japanese documents, and turned up recordings of Aquino's broadcasts". Investigating with the
U.S. Army's Counterintelligence Corps, they "conducted an extensive investigation to determine whether Aquino had committed crimes against the U.S. By the following October, authorities decided that the evidence then known did not merit prosecution, and she was released".
Nevertheless, influential
gossip columnist Walter Winchell lobbied against D'Aquino in 1948 upon learning of her attempt to return home. D'Aquino, forcibly separated from her husband, was brought to
San Francisco, California, on September 25, 1948, where the FBI charged her with the crime of treason for "adhering to, and giving aid and comfort to, the Imperial Government of Japan during World War II".
She stood
trial at the
Federal District Court in
San Francisco beginningJuly 5, 1949, on eight "overt acts" of treason. During what was at the time the costliest trial in American history, totaling more than half a million
dollars, the prosecution presented 46 witnesses, including two of Toguri's former supervisors at Radio Tokyo, and soldiers who testified they could not distinguish between what they had heard on
radio broadcasts and what they had heard by way of rumour. Toguri claimed she and her associates subtly sabotaged the Japanese war effort.
The supervisor at Radio Tokyo
testified that:
Another co-worker testified that Toguri said, "Now you fellows have lost all your ships. Now you really are orphans of the
Pacific. How do you think you will ever get home?"
On September 29, 1949, the jury found Toguri guilty on a sole count, Count VI, which stated, "That on a day during October, 1944, the exact date being to the Grand Jurors unknown, said defendant, at Tokyo, Japan, in a broadcasting studio of The Broadcasting Corporation of Japan, did speak into a microphone concerning the loss of ships." She was fined US$10,000 and given a 10-year prison sentence. She was released January 28, 1956, from the Federal Reformatory for Women at
Alderson, West Virginia, the same facility holding
Axis Sally,
paroled after serving six years and two months. The FBI's cast history notes, "Neither Brundidge nor the witness testified at trial because of the taint of perjury. Nor was Brundidge prosecuted for subornation of perjury."
Afterward, resisting efforts at
deportation, Toguri moved to
Chicago, Illinois, where her father had opened the Japanese-import retail store J. Toguri Mercantile before the war. Never reunited with her husband, she divorced him in 1980; he died in 1996.
An investigation by
Chicago Tribune reporter Ron Yates located Toguri's accusers, who publicly admitted they had committed
perjury, claiming they had lied under oath under pressure from
prosecutors. A subsequent
Morley Safer report on the
television news program
60 Minutes prompted Toguri's exoneration by President Ford on
January 19,
1977.
The FBI case-history cited under References, below, states: "As far as its propaganda value, Army analysis suggested that the program had no negative effect on troop morale and that it might even have raised it a bit".
In 2004, actor
George Takei announced he was working on a film titled
Tokyo Rose, American Patriot, about Toguri's activities during the war.
[Chun, Gary C.W. "Star Trek 's Lt. Sulu plans to make his film, Tokyo Rose: American Patriot, in Hawaii", StarBulletin.com, April 12, 2004.]*
Lord Haw Haw*
Hanoi Hannah*
Federal Bureau of Invesitgation: FBI History — Famous Cases: Iva Toguri d'Aquino and "Tokyo Rose"*
Ask Yahoo! (Feb. 21, 2002): "Who was Tokyo Rose?" (unbylined)*
"Orphan Ann" Home Page*
Mug shots of D'Aquino*
Old Time Radio Music Series: Tokyo Rose (radio recording)
*
Eyewitness to History: "Tokyo Rose broadcasts to American troops in the Pacific - August 14, 1944"
