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