Iva Ikuko Toguri was born on July 4, 1916 in Los Angeles to Japanese immigrants. She was raised a Christian and graduated from UCLA in 1940 with a degree in zoology. On July 5, 1941 she sailed to Japan to visit an ailing aunt in Yokahama. Toguri had been issued a Certificate of Identification, but not a passport. In August she applied for a US passport to return to the US, but on December 11th Japan bombed Pearl Harbor^[1] and the US State Department refused to certify Toguri’s citizenship. Meanwhile, refusing to renounce her US citizenship under pressure from the Japanese government, she was declared an enemy alien in Japan and her aunt was forced to disassociate herself from Toguri. To support herself Toguri found work as a typist at a Japanese news agency, and later at Tokyo Radio.

By November 1943 Allied prisoners of war imprisoned in Japan were forced to broadcast Japanese propaganda to Allied troops in the Pacific. One such show was Tokyo Radio’s Zero Hour. Toguri was asked to be a host on the show, which she agreed to do on the condition that she never be forced to say anything negative about the United States. For the most part she performed comedy sketches and introduced recorded music, never participating in the newscasts. She was paid very little, but used some of her earnings to buy and smuggle food into a nearby Prisoner of War camp. She was never referred to at any time as “Tokyo Rose”: it was a moniker given by Allied Forces to all women who were heard on Japanese propaganda radio.

In April 1945 Toguri married Felipe D’Aquino, a Portuguese citizen of part Japanese decent who Toguri had met at the radio station. She converted to Catholicism but declined taking her husband’s Portuguese citizenship. After Japan’s surrender and the end of World War II four months later, a reporter, Harry T Brundidge, publicly offered a large amount of money for an exclusive interview with “Tokyo Rose”. Toguri, who needed money to return to the States, accepted the offer with Brundidge’s assurance that she would be seen as a hero for entertaining troops during the war. Not only was she never paid, but the story that Brundidge published overtly accused her of committing treason. This led to her being arrested in Yokohama on September 5, 1945. She was released after spending a year in prison after no evidence could be found by the FBI supporting the claims that she aided Japanese war efforts.

Now pregnant, Toguri once again tried to return to the United States but was denied. Her baby was born in Japan and died soon thereafter. She tried again and this time the FBI renewed their investigation into Toguri’s wartime activities. She was rearrested by the US Attorney’s Office and returned to the United States to stand trial for treason. American law states that any person accused of treason must be tried in the City where he/she sets foot on American soil and because of this, she was specifically transported as a prisoner via the USS General Hodges to San Francisco because of the City’s long history of discrimination against Japanese Americans. On September 25, 1948 Toguri was charged with eight counts of treason. News outlets reported that Toguri, aka “Tokyo Rose”, was the seductive female voice that American soldiers heard telling them that their women back home were being unfaithful and that the Japanese were winning the war. Toguri’s trial began the following year in the Federal District Court of San Francisco. It was, at that time, the longest and costliest trial in American history. On September 29, 1949 Toguri was found guilty on one count of treason because of a co-worker who testified that Toguri said on air: “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?” Toguri was fined $10,000 and given a ten year prison sentence. She was sent to the Federal Reformatory for Women in West Virginia. After serving six years of her sentence Toguri was paroled and moved to Chicago, where, after having been released from an internment camp, Toguri’s parents ran a mercantile store. Toguri would work in the store for the remainder of her life. 

In 1971 John Ada wrote a master thesis on the injustices that took place during Toguri’s trial. It would take another five years before a Chicago Tribune reporter read the thesis and discovered that two key witnesses in Toguri’s trial had perjured themselves. The story was picked up and broadcast on 60 Minutes, ultimately leading to President Gerald Ford’s full pardon a year later. Toguri’s US Citizenship was reinstated, though she never left the States again for fear that she would be barred from returning. Her husband, Felipe d’Aquino, who had come with her to the States for her trial, was forced to sign a document agreeing that he would leave the States and never return. He and Toguri would never see each-other again. In 1980 Toguri reluctantly divorced d’Aquino so that he could go on with his life. 

In January 2006 the World War II Veterans Committee presented Toguri with the annual Edward J Herlihy Citizenship Award. She would say that it was the most memorable day of her life. She died nine months later at the age of 90. It was noted in her obituary in the New York Times that the Tokyo Radio broadcasts had very little effect on diminishing American morale; in fact, soldiers looked forward to hearing the American music that Toguri introduced.^[2]

^[1] World War II: https://thesanfranciscophoenix.com/?p=4222

^[2] For a complete story about Iva Toguri’s life, I recommend Mike Weedall’s book Iva: The True Story of Tokyo Rose.