RAILROADED
“Good evening, Mr. & Mrs. North and South America and all the ships at sea…let’s go to press !” Walter Winchell
Tokyo Rose and Me.
The end to World War II
The Instrument of Surrender was actually signed off the coast of Tokyo, Japan. On the morning of Sept. 2, 1945, Japanese representatives signed the surrender document during a ceremony on the deck of the battleship USS Missouri. This day marked the end of World War II.
Japanese representatives on board the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay to participate in formal surrender ceremonies on Sept. 2, 1945. (U.S. Air Force photo)
WWII. Propaganda . Radio broadcasts. Iva Toguri D’Aquino aka TOKYO ROSE.
The Zero Hour (ゼロ・アワー, Zero awā) was the first of over a dozen live radio programs broadcast by Japan during the Pacific War. To reach a large geographical area these transmissions included shortwave radio frequencies in the 31 m band.[1][2] The program featured Allied prisoners of war (POW) reading current news and playing prerecorded music, and sending messages from POWs to their families back home and to Allied soldiers and sailors serving in the Pacific theater. These messages were interlaced with demoralizing commentary and appeals to surrender or sabotage the Allied war effort. The Zero Hour also featured the female announcer dubbed Tokyo Rose.
Iva Ikuko Toguri D’Aquino (Japanese: 戸栗郁子 アイバ; July 4, 1916 – September 26, 2006) was a Japanese-American disc jockey and radio personality who participated in English-language radio broadcasts transmitted by Radio Tokyo to Allied troops in the South Pacific during World War II on The Zero Hour radio show.
Characters and their roles in the conviction of Iva Toguri, Japanese American citizen.
Orphan Ann – adopted name of Iva Toguri for her radio broadcasts in Japan to American military. Ann short for announcer.
Tokyo Rose – Toguri inaccurately identified with the name “Tokyo Rose”, coined by Allied soldiers and which predated her broadcasts. Actually, 20 or more young women were on the Tokyo Rose broadcasts. All were lumped together to become known as TOKYO ROSE.
Michael Joseph Roche – presiding judge in Tokyo Rose trial on chargers of treason. (July 22, 1878 – July 1, 1964) was a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California.
Walter Winchell – (April 7, 1897 – February 20, 1972) was a syndicated American newspaper gossip columnist and radio news commentator. Originally a vaudeville performer, Winchell began his newspaper career as a Broadway reporter, critic and columnist for New York tabloids.
J. Edgar Hoover – FBI DIRECTOR Tokyo Rose Case Summary (January 5, 1948)
+ Hoover letter to Walter Winchell (January 6, 1948)
On August 30, 1945 two American war corespondents entered Tokyo. The Second World War still hadn’t formally ended – Douglas MacArthur accepted Japan’s surrender two days later – but Clark Lee of International News Service and Harry Brundidge of Cosmopolitan wasted no time scouring the devastated enemy capital for stories. Lee had covered the Allied landings at Guadalcanal, Sicily and Normandy and flown in B-29 raids over Tokyo; Brundidge, a former crime reporter from St. Louis, trafficked in sensational stories for the Hearst papers. Together they formed a pact, in Brundidge’s words, to uncover “the hottest story in Japan today…Who is Tokyo Rose?”
An American Patriot cover on January 4, 1948 Walter Winchell reported that Clark Lee had informed him that he, Lee, had turned over to the FBI a signed confession by Tokyo Rose (Iva Toguri) and that the FBI apparently was doing nothing to prosecute the famous traitor. Probably in response, D.M. Ladd prepared a memo summarizing the case . The document conveniently stolen from his (Lee) hotel room and never found.
At the bottom of the memo Hoover prints his belief that the FBI should apprise Winchell of the facts. He followed his own suggestion the next day with a letter to his friend Walter Winchell.
Tokyo Rose Trial: 1949
Defendant: Iva Ikuko Toguri (“Tokyo Rose”)
Crime Charged: Treason
Chief Defense Lawyers: Wayne M. Collins, George Oishausen, and Theodore Tamba
Chief Prosecutors: Thomas DeWolfe, Frank J. Hennessy, John Hogan, and James Knapp
Judge: Michael J. Roche
Place: San Francisco, California
Dates of Trial: July 5-September 29, 1949
Verdict: Guilty
Sentence: 10 years in prison and a $10,000 fine.
Iva Toguri was innocent.
“It’s only because of their stupidity that they’re able to be so sure of themselves.” “It would have been so pointless to kill himself that, even if he had wanted to, the pointlessness would have made him unable.”
Kafka – The Trial
Railroaded by the establishment: her government (American Citizen), a gossip columnist hungry for fame, FBI Director opening an investigation on a request by Walter Winchell, prejudiced presiding judge (Roche had a son who served in the Pacific Theater during the war), a jury comprised of all white citizens (all ethnicities excluded other than white) defense witnesses excluded (government cited high cost to bring corroborating witnesses for defense from Japan (a trial that costs the American government nearly one million dollars), witnesses for prosecution nearly all committing perjury . Overly jealous prosecution. Never permitted to see her husband again as he was forbidden entry to the United. Hounded by government for years for payment of fine and accrued interest.
Jury vote. The judge harassed, harangued and intimidated the jury until they returned with a verdict of guilty.
One of the holdouts who reluctantly acquiesced in the guilty verdict was the jury foreman, John Mann:
“She was such an inoffensive little thing. … I think I know how she felt because I felt the same way when I was cut off from everybody. You ask the judge a question and he reprimands you. He definitely tells you you’re out of order. The count is nine to three against you. I couldn’t help feeling the isolation she must have felt in Japan.”
On September 29, 1949, the jury returned a guilty verdict against Iva Ikuko Toguri. She was sentenced to 10 years in prison and a $10,000 fine. After serving just over six years in a federal women’s prison in West Virginia, Toguri was released early for good behavior. On January 18, 1977, and after decades of debate over the fairness of her trial, President Gerald Ford pardoned Toguri. Toguri was thus officially exonerated, and her U.S. citizenship was finally restored. Toguri’s trial was one of only seven American treason trials following World War II.
“If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.”
Desmond Tutu
Too many bad actors complicit in the conviction of Iva Tuguri to mention by name and deed.
Before Facebook, Instagram, Flicker and a plethora of social media apps became the rage, there was just the vanilla internet.
Sometime during the nineties I did a lot of searches gathering info on interesting subjects. At the time I was deeply immersed in all things Japanese. I delved into language, literature, films, history, art, war, et al. Two years I studied, corresponded with, exchanged gifts, had a Japanese girlfriend and took a 10 day trip to Nippon. Osaka, Kyoto and Tokyo. I knew more about the Japanese than most Japanese knew about themselves.
I was having an online hotly contested conversation on the Japanese one day about WWII, specifically, the Pacific theater. Someone entered the discussion and introduced the topic of Tokyo Rose. Defending her, no less. I was somewhat taken aback as to why he would defend a convicted traitor. The more I listened to his arguments, indeed, I was inclined to believe him. She, Iva Toguri, aka the infamous TOKYO ROSE was innocent.
And, further, he was an advocate for reparations by the U.S. government to be paid to Iva for false imprisonment, deprivation of wages for decades of anonymity and seclusion from pursuing & participation in pursuit of gainful employment. He was in touch with her, kept her informed of any progress on her behalf. Miss Toguri was 80 plus years in age at the time. I don’t remember the name of this individual but I expressed interest in his project and he asked if I would like speaking to her. I readily accepted.
He gave me her email address and I messaged her my sympathy for the pitiable manner in which she had been treated by America, her birthplace. I received a warm reply thanking me for my interest and extending best wishes to me.
Later, I received her phone number and spoke to her in her home in Chicago. Gifts. I wanted to send her something she could enjoy and sent her a box of steaks and other assorted meats from Omaha Steaks. I did this for several months then I received a call from a relative saying she was no longer receiving calls due to health reasons. They thanked me and I received hand written thank you cards from her for months.
Time passes, emotions cool, causes are diluted, acquaintances and friendships eventually slip away until they become memories.
I left for China in 2006, the year of her death.
Iva Toguri D’Aquino is escorted from court in the US in 1949 after her conviction on one of eight counts of treason. Photograph: AP
‘Tokyo Rose’ dies at 90
Justin McCurry in Tokyo
Wed 27 Sep 2006 10.31 EDTShare
Iva Toguri D’Aquino, the American woman popularly known as Tokyo Rose, who was convicted and later cleared of making propaganda radio broadcasts for the Japanese during the second world war, has died, her family said today. She was 90.
But, whenever moments of reflection on events in my life, rumination pushes thoughts of Iva Toguri D’Aquino
(D’Aquino, Iva’s Portuguese husband whom she never saw again after birthing a stillborn child before leaving Japan) are pushed to the forefront of remembrance & my eyes tear up for Tokyo Rose.