WFMU’s Beware of the Blog has an eye-opening obit for WWII’s Tokyo Rose (Iva Ikuko Toguri), a Japanese American who was abandoned by the U.S. government and forced by the Japanese government to become a radio propaganda DJ. All the while Toguri remained a loyal American patriot. Her story is fascinating.
Toguri became adept at sabotaging her own broadcasts. Though employed to broadcast pro-Japanese propaganda, Toguri’s outspoken support of the Allies off-mic (while cleverly concealing it within her message and delivery on-air) resulted in numerous arguments, fisticuffs, and sometimes daily 3 am harassments thanks to the Kempeitai Thought Police. She helped keep American soldiers alive (at mortal personal risk) with food, medicine, clothing, and hope during her almost daily visits to their cells. As an American unwilling to denounce her citizenship, Toguri was not to be trusted by the Japanese, and as an American woman of Japanese extraction broadcasting for the Japanese, she was considered a traitor in her own country.
Reader comment:
Kinnell says:
Not to be argumentative in any way but in response to your posting about
Iva Ikuko Toguri but she is not Tokyo Rose.Some of the people that were witnesses against her in her case where she
was charged with treason later came out to say that they were pushed by
the State Department to provide false statements. In other words she
was not Tokyo Rose, which was later proven in part by the actions of Ron
Yates of the Chicago Tribune. They had an interview with Yates on
Wednesday’s All Things Considered.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iva_Ikuko_Toguri – in the first lines of
her wikipedia article it states that she was exonerated of those
charges.So again, not being argumentative, but I just want the truth to be out
there about someone rather than furthering the stamp that was put on her
life and was never able to be rid of.