The Trial of Tokyo Rose: Part One

and Tokyo was flooded with journalists. All the reporters Lee 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. 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. 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

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 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 Gis themselves mostly had a less dramatic view of Tokyo Rose.

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 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.

an old friend of Lee's, Leslie Nakashima. Nakashima, an American of Japanese descent, had better luck at the NHK office. 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 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 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.

a forthright manner and unexpectedly a rather unremarkable voice. Things only got stranger from there. If Lee and Brundage had 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 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 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 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 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. 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. 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 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, 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 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 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, 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 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

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 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 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 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 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 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 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, 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, 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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. 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.

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. 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 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

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 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 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 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 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 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

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 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 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 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 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 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

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 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, 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 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. 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

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 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 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, 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.

She would come into the NHK studio for two to three hours every evening to prepare for and broadcast the show, 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.

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 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 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 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 more determined to quit Zero Hour.

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 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 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 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 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 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

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 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 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.

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 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, reporters gathered outside Sugamo to take pictures of her.

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. 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 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 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 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. 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 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.

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 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 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 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, 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 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, 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. 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, 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 time since Iva had been detained by the military police in the fall of nineteen forty five, she finally had a lawyer, Wayne M.

personal funds to cover some of the trial expenses. On 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, 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. 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

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 Instagram at History on Trial and on Twitter at Underscore History on Trial.