Excellent, I was glad to hear it work for the first time in generations on todays show. Keep up the great work.

Understand the history of Tokyo Rose: she was demonized and then prosecuted for the gains of a president who needed political points. The same thing nearly happened to Zimmerman, and in countless others in our nations history.

How long will it be before Obama tries to do so again? Why do we put up with innocent people being prosecuted, convicted and jailed for crimes they never committed, all to meet the needs of a uncaring president?

What a crock of crap. 

But it makes sense that Glenn Beck should defend a fellow traitor.

Glenn Beck is another Tokyo Rose.He creates divisiveness when we should be working together. He claims to be religious and preaches selfishness. He wraps himself in the flag and distorts the ideals of democracy.

Do you know that today is the seventh anniversary of her death?

actually zimmermans wife has now come forward saying that he had issues with the man he killed so maybe you need to do some fact finding again.

you really need to look at the history books buddy she was not a traitor and neither is beck, get your head on straight and learn facts not try to spread lies

you, sir, are a moron. that is all 

you must be a democrat,always jump to conclusions instead of  just understanding the article

 This would be the same “wife” that is divorcing him and is already on record lying about him waiving a gun at her. She admitted to lying about the gun, btw. So, yeah, totally believable witness for the persecution.

Really?

So “Orphan Annie” had access to the bombing targets of the Japanese military? She was briefed on which particular units of Americans were going to be attacked so that she could warn them and save their lives?

That is such an unbelievable story as to be laughed at by anyone but drooling, slack jawed, mouth breathing moronic Beck followers who lap it up like a cat drinking spilt milk.

I think Beck should continue using that microphone. He is Tokyo Rose’s heir.

Your head has been up your hind end way too long… You cannot see the Realities of the World That Way!!!

Maybe doing research before you type would be beneficial to you. Because you just made a complete ass of yourself. Great going, kid.

Based on the Constitutions Freedom of Speech, she was a verbal aggressor but commited no crimes.  Al Quieda on the other hand, Are Verbal Aggressors, Tactical Aggressors, Civil Aggressors, Terrorist, and Murderers; But They Are Totally Cottled By This POTUS and His Corrupt Administration!!! 

Going through a divorce — why WOULDN’T you trust every word from the “wife”?  What could POSSIBLY go wrong?!!!

Not really, when you factor in that she used the venue to convey strategic information to benefit the allies.  More heroic, I’d say…

If you were postulating about a future event, then your argument would be one to consider.  However, since this is a documented historical fact, you are simply a moron.

Text from my 15 year old daughter today; “my chiinese teacher said aann coulter isn’t rational and foxx news isn’t news and now I’m stuck outside the room”.
My immediate response; “Tell the truth, even if it means in the end it hurts you” – Glenn Beck 9/26/13

Glenn, as an old radio engineer myself it is amazing that the microphone sounds that good after all those years. The high end is a bit “flat” compared to your RCA, but that may be it’s natural response curve.

The mic looks like it is a Japanese copy of the RCA ribbon mics of that era, probably made by The Victor Company (the company we now know as JVC {Japan Victor Corporation}, which was the Japanese branch of RCA until 1939, when RCA was forced to sell Victor to Japanese interests by the Japanese government).

Thor the guy you’re talkin about lives at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue not in the Dallas Metroplex

First of all he didn’t kill a man. Z  was a blood thirsty racist killer who shot an innocent hop scotching child on his way home from buying candy. I know because I read the news and got the whole unbiased complete story from Al Sharpton and President Obama. Second, do you really believe one word from that lying bitch who is in the middle of a nasty divorce and is already on record as a liar?. 

Sir, you, no doubt, have drunk Obama’s Kool-Aid.

I have no more regard for Barack Obama than I do George Bush, Bill Clinton,Glenn Beck or Alex Jones.

 good interpretation, Herr Gobbels..

Yes…They thought they were giving her information that was demoralizing…..How wrong they were…

A woman who perjured herself in court. How funny you would believe her.

Another liberal with zero facts but loves to name call.  How nice you come here, tell lies, show your intolerance and show what hypocrites liberals are.  Go back to your mother’s basement and wait for your gubmnt check, little boy.

I say this to myself – “I open my hands and that which falls into it is mine” – you opened yours and into it fell this special microphone. 

You know if you actually study something called history not the revised history you liberals just love but actual history moron than you will know how full of shit that statement is.

Lies like your lie of being a Business owner. You come to his defense so many times on this web site that I believe you got your head firmly planted in his rear.

Learn to read the maybe you will know the facts.

I see the liberal trolls are denying history and well documented facts again.

Who’s revising history?

Glenn Beck, he now claims a traitor was something different.

Up is down when you listen to Glenn Beck

And the history channel the guys who’s job it is to get history right proves your full of it. http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/ford-pardons-tokyo-rose
and here is a documentary on the subject get informed moron before you make yourself look like the idiot you are. http://shop.history.com/tokyo-rose-victim-of-propaganda-dvd/detail.php?p=68061
and here is another article on the subject what a moron.
http://www.history.com/news/history-lists/6-world-war-ii-propaganda-broadcasters

 business owner liberal , what? you got a koolaid stand?

“But when she was coming over back to America, her home where she was born, what happened? A radio broadcaster, Walter Winchell, found out about it and thought this was awful that she could even come here,” Glenn explained. “And so he started to gin up the American people and start to spread lies,” 

Glenn forgot to mention that the American Legion, then a rather strong group with many millions of soldiers recently discharged from the armed forces, also led the charge to prosecute. Glenn also forgot to mention that Walter Winchell was a hack job and a huge fan of Joe McCarthy who would later prove his disservice  to the country during televised hearings. Another journalist, who the Department of Justice inexplicably allowed to travel to Japan to interview witnesses (and sought to profit off of her story–later co-opted into a so called confession), got an old acquaintance to perjure himself for the sake of the “story”.

A chilling tale for sure. Was Harry Truman involved? Why did the government, which had aleady exonerated her, cave to a loud mouth radio personality? Or more likely, letters to congressmen from former servicemen?

 How GB connects it I wonder–to his operations? Isn’t he calling for an uprising against this Administration? He recently called for Obama’s impeachment due to his aleged treason–does he want a trial in the Senate?  Has he found anyone in the House or Senate to take up the cause? Does GB see the irony of him being one of the Walter Winchells of this era– along with the rest of the over the top talking heads?

I don’t think he is calling for an upraising just for Obama to answer for the many things he has done.

This and so many other stories show us what is true and continues to plague all humans everywhere:

Our “leaders” do not tell US the truth. 

Without truth no person can make a logical and correct judgment about people and events. 

Without discernment about people and events a nation can become coarsened and degraded.

When a people become coarsened and degraded they are ripe to fall. 

We are putting up with willful ignorance AND illegal leadership from bottom to top.

If the laws of the land can not be executed by those who hold the keys to the kingdom, the state or the city, the citizens of the land must stand and declare that they are now ready to lead.

Lead or get OUT of the way!

Tell the TRUTH in all government dealings.

Ask that our government OFFICIALS and ALL CONTRACTING AGENCIES/PERSONNEL be subject not only to the oaths that they refuse to uphold, but also be subject to a CODE of LAWS based on the UCMJ and start putting these TOONS in PRISON WHERE THEY BELONG.

Doctors, lawyers, contractors, politicians, businesses – all under the umbrella of “failing services” and “dishonest and lack of care and due diligence”.

When will America get rid of the filth that has infiltrated our “leadership”?

How many of YOU, like me, are NOT being represented?

Your daughter is living the conservative nightmare – even in school – and this plays out all over the nation damaging our children even before they can vote.

Bullying by teachers MUST STOP.

Wow.  When  I heard this on the air this morning, I was awed/amazed/breathless.  just wow.

WOW! GREAT message, Mr. Beck.

I took a ‘screen shot’ of your show, and would like to use it as my ‘cover’ photo to ‘remind’ me of your message. (Don’t know how it’ll turn out here)

“Our” leaders do not tell us the truth most of the time.  They always lie.  It is government’s nature.

Whenever there’s a slow news day they invent another phony emergency to scare us with.  Sometimes it’s an environmental scare, sometimes a health scare, and sometimes a security scare.  But it’s always a lie, or at least the threat it allegedly poses is always a lie.

The moral of all this, as I see it, is to organize your life in such a way that you can protect yourself against as many potential emergencies as possible WITHOUT calling on government.  Because when government is most needed, that’s when it’s most likely to be uninterested in saving you — or even to be in bed with the bad guys.

It did happen to Zimmerman.  His soon-to-be-ex wife and the cops who keep stopping him for nothing are finishing the persecution that crooked governor began.

They all need to be in jail, and be made to pay back the cost of defending himself at trial.

 I find this amazing that in my 65 years on this earth that I am finally learning the truth abut her.  I have never heard this or anything about this ever.  THANK YOU for spreading the truth to us and the world.  Now if only we could get the 180 or registered members of the communist/socialist part of American out of CONGRESS.  These are the traitors along with the mudslime domestic terrorist in DC.

I only wish my father was still alive to comment on this.  He served in the Pacific in WWII and told about some of her broadcasts.

Thank you, Glenn, for always telling me things that I wished I had known 50 years ago.  I am able to help the young people around me to better understand our history and to, hopefully, make their future better.  May God Bless you and always keep you safe.

BRINGS UP THE POINT, “IS OBAMA DEMORILIZING US WITH HIS ACTIONS, MUCH AS AL QUIEDA HAS BEEN DOING IN THE PAST”?

You trust a woman that is divorcing her man?

It sounds just like the other mic.

I would really like to know the truth behind Ethel and Julius Rosenburg story….. I think they were done the same way!!!!

 Lets not go through your race baitng crap again……….though you probably are a great bater……we will call you the Great Master of Baitors!!!

Great Microphone and it still has the GREAT low frequency response.  These Microphones always needed a better pop filter over them. I have 2 similar ones and they are wonderful for low voices such as mine.

If we as Americans would communicate Truth and Not communicate words that have no foundation, then we as Americans will succeed in saving America…

I think it’s silly to compare Zimmerman to Tokyo Rose, Zimmerman is Hispanic and she was Asian.

And you take her word for it?  She is going to be tried for lying.

you are a moronic fool

Snowleopard, While I understand your comparison to what is going on in the present,
Compairing what was done to a woman who had not only help our military men being held as POW’s but also supplied info on Japanese plans….. and G zimmerman’s trial in the present really has little to do with the history being discussed, This discussion has degenerated into a G. Zimmerman rant which really has no place in this discussion…. lets get back on track people…..

Many things are not what they seem—like this PHONY potus we have now!
When he was first running he didn’t tell us that he was a foreigner–a Muslim–a socialist–a Marxist (altho he did say he sought out Marxist professors)–a communists–an American hater and a BIG FAT LIAR did he???
He was put back in by the machine who cheated with the IRS the NSA and the online companies who spied on the American people and especially the conservatives who doesn’t want photo state issued ID because he and the Dems. couldn’t cheat as easily!  

Glenn Beck…That …Was  BEAUTIFUL !!!

I learned the truth about ‘Tokyo Rose’ long ago, but  Glenn Beck has done a fine service to her real truth that some did not want to know! His accompanying lesson was also as ingeniously well delivered!

I believe that First Amendment is valid while you are in the US, but once you go overseas and began broadcasting against your country, you are a TRAITOR!  There is also the Alien and Sedition Act.  Jane Fonda fits well into the category of traitor.  Had she stayed in the US and mouthed off against the war in Vietnam, no problem, although I wouldn’t  pay a nickel to see her in a movie.  But, once she went to the capital of the enemy, and tried to get the American POWs to speak out against their country, and when they refused they were tortured, she should ever have been let back into the US.  John Kerry also.  He’s a male Jane Fonda, who rubbed elbows with the North Vietnamese in Paris while Americans were being tortured. As a Vietnam Vet, I detest both of them.

There is surprisingly lots of information about her, most consistent from article to article. She was framed by our government for brownie points & popularity. In Berkeley California there were American Japanese lined up over a block and around the corner December 8th after Pearl Harbor wanting to enlist. Instead of sending them to fight in Europe, most were sent to internment camps. How disgraceful F.D.R. A few gold stars in the windows of their parents later, their loyalty wouldn’t have been an issue. American Japanese were stripped of their heritage, and language in a disgraceful manner that still embarrasses many of their descendants.

The truth never needs to be defended.  When I was in the Navy, I sat in an Officers Club outside of Yokohama.  The window I was sitting next to looked out over an old racetrack.  In the basement of that racetrack American POW’s were kept as slaves.  Now to think Tokyo Rose might have visited those prisoners brings even more chills to my spine, but good ones, than just what I was told at the time I was there.

Iva Toguri runs circles around the guy we have in the White House right now.  She should be given the Medal of Freedom.  The guy in the White House is suppose to be such a gifted speaker, hell, he couldn’t even get the Olympics to come to Chicago

Thank you for your service, Vet.  Was sent a story about the dinner Pres. Nixon gave at the WH for the returning Nam prisoners of war in ’73.  In May of this year, the Nixon Foundation gave a dinner in CA on the 40th anniversary of the WH dinner.  Sadly, not too many of those vets were around (or could attend.)

When will men accept the Truth – women lie and lie often, anytime it’s advantageous. She sold him out for public acclaim – her 30 pieces of silver.

Glenn,

“… the massacres that this country has seen and been involved in and caused.” ….

Have you joined the ‘I hate America’ crowd? What’s next, a world apology tour?

Because people in this country just sat back and let it happen. Just because you got a love for this country does not mean we have to hide the evil in our past in fact it shows that we came a long way to become the greatest nation in world history.

People, much like the microphone of Tokyo Rose, have been shelved by a government that no longer wants to hear what they have to say.  It disregards their voices.  It violates the principals of representation, a government of the people, by the people, for the people.  It says, “you are no longer relevant in our nation, but just like the microphone, we are willing to sell you to the highest bidder if it will profit our cause.”

Thank God for Glenn Beck.  Not only did he purchase the microphone and allow it a voice,  he has been used of God to inspire a generation of patriots to begin speaking out, and to the surprise and angst of the powers that be, their voices are clear and they have a message of truth.

I am one of those voices.  Glenn has no idea, but because of his influence on my life, Phil Castillo and I began broadcasting on WTN radio in Nashville over 3 years ago.  We talk about God and country on our show, ONE NATION UNDER GOD RADIO.  Now, we broadcast 5 days a week into Boston on WROL radio, and not only do we broadcast, but we have been given  the responsibility to fill 11 hours of airtime with a message of Christ to the Boston community.  Were it not for Glenn Beck, I would still be a microphone on a shelf. 

Thank you, Glenn Beck.

Dan Zimmerle
http://www.onenationunderGodradio.com

Thank you for backing up Mr. Beck’s broadcast with articles and facts. It’s one thing to say someone is wrong with your owns words, and another thing entirely to show them with facts. I appreciated checking Beck’s words with other new stories.

Interesting !
Turned on a mic that had the truth spoke trough it in a horrible time of mankind.
2+2 = 4      don’t let big gov’ insult you’re intelligence , moral of this is were the hell are we. 

Wow! I had absolutely no idea.  Thank you.

GOD bless and you are very welcome.

I loved this broadcast and fascinating history lesson on Orphan Ann/ Tokyo Rose (aka Iva Toguri)!! God Bless the friends and family of Iva. Did she have any children? What courage she had without her homeland behind her. The mic sounded amazing with the beautiful ring of truth.

Sidenote to Glenn- Don’t follow the crowd with this negativity about Common Core (CC). Don’t buy the bull that this is a brainwashing watering down of our education under the FEDs. They play a role, but not the role you think they are playing. Please find something positive to say to our nation about this reformation. Use your voice to bring us together, not apart.
Other than that! Loved this piece…

I missed this on Thursday because by the time Glenn got around to it I was unable to listen to the radio, For an hour he said that the use of the Mic would be in a sec, then in a moment, then the next segment, and next, and coming up. I love Glenn Beck, always will, but I was disappointed that he teased for so long.

The little fella who made a you tube video that almost no one saw is still in jail for Obama murdering Ty Woods, Chris Stevens, Glen Doherty and Sean Smith.

At the end of the proverbial day, preserving liberty is up to each of us: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0094KY878

Baldwin
YOU lost as Obammy told John McCain. Take your marbles and shut p

I usually stand with Glenn but I need proof to  believe this. I know that many soldiers listened
to her post. Need proofGlenn

If she was tried and convicted for treason why oh why wasn’t jane fonda

Way to go Bro Beck. You tell it like it is. You did honor to this woman’s sacrifice. I know somewhere in the eternities she’s smiling at you…as are so many others…

Keep it up Bro Beck. 

Bro Ockander

Tokyo Rose or Orphan Ann was not a traitor. She helped the Vets and provided the U.S. with intel, much different than what Jane Fonda did..

Glenn,

I don’t know if you will see this, but I wrote a series of stories for Chicago Tribune back in 1976 that helped get Iva Toguri a presidential pardon. I knew Iva personally we talked often. We were going to write book together giving, once and for all, her story in her own words. Sadly, Iva died in 2006 before our project got off the ground. Here is an overview of Iva’s story.

Ron Yates,
Dean Emeritus, College of Media, University of Illinois
Former Foreign Correspondent, Chicago Tribune

THE
LEGEND OF TOKYO
ROSE

INTRO BOX/SIDEBAR

During a 27-year career with the Chicago
Tribune, much of it as a foreign
correspondent in Asia and Latin
America, I encountered my share of remarkable and
unforgettable stories.

Some came out of the horrendous suffering
I witnessed while covering the wars in Vietnam and Cambodia.
Others were generated by the bloody revolutions in Guatemala and El Salvador.
Still others sprang from the wrenching political upheavals I reported on in
places like The Philippines,
Brazil,
China
and South Korea.

But there is one story in my
journalistic career that I treasure above all the others. That is the story of
a Japanese-American woman named Iva
Toguri. You probably don’t
recognize the name and if you don’t, that is perfectly understandable.

You and millions of other
Americans know her by another name: “Tokyo
Rose.”

That’s right, “Tokyo Rose.” The so-called “Siren of the
Pacific” who sat before a microphone in Tokyo and told GIs on a 25-minute show
called “The Zero Hour” that their homes, their girl friends and even apple pie
weren’t worth fighting for. Tokyo Rose, the legendary “seductress of the short
wave,” whose broadcasts between 1943 and 1945 for Radio Tokyo were meant to
demoralize the American fighting man and undermine his will to fight.

Remember all those World War II
era movies with GIs gathered around short wave radios listening to a sultry “Tokyo Rose” intone such phrases as: “Come on boys, give up.
You haven’t got a chance against the Imperial Japanese Army. Why throw your
lives away?”

There’s just one problem. There
was no “Tokyo Rose.” Nor were there ever any treasonous broadcasts
like the ones described above. At least not by Iva Toguri.

What follows is her remarkable
and poignant story. (Ronald E. Yates)

By Ronald E.
Yates

It was the
summer of 1941 and for a young California
woman named Iva
Toguri it was a time filled with promise and endless
possibilities.

The previous June Iva
had graduated from UCLA with a bachelor’s degree in zoology, she had a shiny Chrysler, and she was planning on attending graduate school
in the fall so she could begin a career as a medical researcher or perhaps even
a doctor.

The daughter of hardworking Japanese
immigrants, Iva had been brought up to
be a confident, optimistic American. And why not? After all, she was born in Los Angeles on the 4th of
July–and you can’t get more American than that.

But in the summer of 1941 the world was
not a place that could easily match the hopes and expectations of a 25-year-old
UCLA graduate.

In Europe,
a war was raging and the forces of Adolf Hitler’s
Third Reich occupied or controlled most of the continent. In Asia,
Imperial Japan, under the leadership of a clique of hardcore militarists, was
in control of China,
the Korean Peninsula, Taiwan and a segment of the South Seas ceded to it after World War I.

Conflict and discord were the prevailing
truths of the day, and as Iva
Toguri stood on the brink of her
future an ominous cloud of world war hung in the warm summer air.

Thus it was not without some trepidation
that Toguri’s ailing mother asked Iva to
represent the American side of the Toguri family at the bedside of a dying aunt
in Tokyo. It
was a bit risky, but someone had to go; and on July 5, 1941, one day after her 25th
birthday, Iva was on a slow boat to Japan. She
spoke no Japanese, had never been to Japan and had never met her aunt.

It would be a fateful journey, one that
would alter Iva Toguri’s life forever and eventually introduce to the world one
of its most enduring and erroneous myths: The Legend of “Tokyo Rose.”

Less than five months after arriving in Japan and not
long after her sick aunt had recovered, Japanese warplanes swooped down on a
place called Pearl Harbor. For Iva Toguri
and millions of others, the future went from bright to black in a matter of
moments. And the lights would not come back on until August 1945, when Japan
surrendered.

But for Iva Toguri,
the war did not end in 1945 as it did for so many others. Four years later Iva Toguri
would stand in a San Francisco
courtroom, one of only a few American women ever convicted of treason. In the
minds of millions of Americans Iva Toguri was the one and only “Tokyo
Rose,” the name American GIs in the Pacific had given to several women
radio announcers who played scratchy Glenn Miller
and Benny Goodman records during propaganda radio
shows broadcast in English from Tokyo
and elsewhere in Asia.

Iva’s conviction on just one of eight
counts of treason came despite the testimony of G.I.s who called the Radio
Tokyo “Zero Hour” broadcasts she made morale boosters and despite
evidence which showed she was just one of 13 English-speaking
women announcers broadcasting from Tokyo at the time. Another 14 women had
broadcast from cities throughout Asia and the
Pacific that were occupied by the Imperial Japanese Army. Interestingly, not one of them called herself
“Tokyo Rose.” (The
only radio alias Iva
Toguri ever used during her
15-minute segment of popular music was the name “Orphan Ann” because, as she often said during her
broadcasts, she was an announcer who had been orphaned in Tokyo by the war.)

Not even the absence of a written record
or an electronic recording of the single “treasonous” broadcast she
was supposed to have made stopped her conviction. That broadcast came after a
crushing U.S. Naval victory in Leyte Gulf of
The Philippines
in which she allegedly said:

“Orphans of the Pacific, you really
are orphans now. How will you get home now that all your ships are sunk?”

Most Americans listening to that would
have seen through the facetious tone of those words, no matter who said them,
and understood that it was a broadcast meant more for members of the defeated
Imperial Japanese Navy than for the victorious U.S. Navy. Even more important,
however, was the fact that Iva never
said those words.

Nevertheless, in 1949 as she, her family
and her corps of defense attorneys led by the late Wayne Mortimer
Collins looked on, Iva was sentenced to 10 years in prison and a $10,000
fine. She served six years and two months of her sentence in the Alderson
Federal Reformatory in West Virginia
which would much later house Martha
Stewart. But more importantly her
conviction sentenced Iva
Toguri to a life of disgrace and
deep inner pain that only those falsely accused and convicted can ever
understand.

Some vindication came in a series of
exclusive stories I reported and wrote in 1976 while serving as the Chicago
Tribune’s Tokyo Bureau Chief and Chief Asia Correspondent.

After several meetings two key prosecution
witnesses who, after 27 years of silence, wanted to ease their consciences,
admitted to me that they were forced by U.S. Justice Department and FBI officials
to lie, tell half-truths and withhold vital information at the trial. It was on
the basis of their coerced and false testimony that the jury had found Iva guilty. (Article
3 of the Constitution states that treason shall consist only in levying war
against the United States or in giving aid and comfort to its enemies and that
conviction may be had only on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt
act or on confession in open court).

The two witnesses, Kenkichi Oki
and George Mitsushio—both California-born
Japanese-Americans—were Iva’s
superiors on Radio Tokyo’s “Zero Hour” radio program. Oki was the
show’s production manager and Mitsushio was program director. Oki and Mitsushio
testified they had heard Iva make the
so-called “Orphans of the Pacific” broadcast about Leyte
Gulf in October 1944 when in fact she never did.

The “Zero Hour” was produced
under coercion by Allied prisoners of war, and while the Imperial Japanese
government saw it as a way to broadcast propaganda to American GIs fighting in
the Pacific, the POWs and Iva saw it
as a way to sabotage the Japanese war effort.

That’s the way the occupation forces of
Gen. Douglas MacArthur saw it too when on April 17, 1946, following 11 months
of Iva’s incarceration in Tokyo’s Sugamo prison along with such Class A
Japanese war criminals as former Prime Minister Hideki Tojo, the U.S. Army
Legal Section issued the following report:

“There
is no evidence that Iva
Toguri ever broadcast greetings to
units by name and location, or predicted military movements or attacks,
indicating access to secret military information and plans.”

Then, in October 1946 a U.S. Justice
Department investigation of Iva
concluded:

“Iva
Toguri’s activities, particularly in view of the innocuous nature of her
broadcasts, are not sufficient to warrant prosecution for treason.”

It was obvious that the U.S.
authorities in Tokyo
were willing to let bygones be bygones. And they were willing to accept the
reasons for Iva
Toguri’s voluntary participation
in the Zero Hour show: that like most of the 10,000 Japanese-Americans stranded
in Tokyo during
the war, she had taken the job to sustain herself while she was basically a
hostage in a hostile environment.

Furthermore, she had been assured by the
American and Australian POWs who wrote the scripts she read, that she was doing
nothing unpatriotic–and indeed that what they were doing might help the allied
war effort.

That was especially important to Iva,
because unlike all the other Japanese-Americans who participated in the Zero
Hour broadcasts, she had steadfastly refused to give up her American
citizenship, despite being threatened and pushed to do so by Imperial Japan’s
dreaded “kempeitai” secret police. In fact, her pro-American
sentiments often got her into arguments with Japanese members of the Zero Hour
staff. On several occasions she risked arrest and even death to smuggle food
and medical supplies to Allied POW’s in Tokyo.

In 1948, Iva
petitioned to return to the United
States and Chicago, where her family had resettled
following the war and where she still lives.

When word leaked out that the notorious
“Tokyo Rose” was trying to reenter the United States, much of the U.S. press took
exception. Radio columnist Walter
Winchell unleashed a series of
broadcasts attacking then U.S. Atty. Gen. Tom Clark
for “laxness” in dealing with “Tokyo Rose.” Pressure
steadily built on the Truman administration
to “make an example” of somebody. That “somebody” was to be
Iva Toguri.

It made no
difference that Iva
Toguri bore no resemblance in
appearance or deed to the fictitious and seductive Oriental woman American
G.I.s fantasized about while sitting in their jungle foxholes. Nor did the fact
that U.S. Occupation forces already had investigated Iva
and cleared her of any activity that could be construed as treasonous.

It was an election year and the
administration of President Harry
S Truman
could not afford to be seen as being soft on alleged wartime spies and
turncoats. Atty. Gen. Clark
dispatched investigators to Tokyo
to look into the Tokyo Rose case. They found that Iva Toguri
was the only person associated with the “Zero Hour” show who was
still an American citizen and hence, still subject to U.S. law. So Clark began to build a case
against Iva and told justice department attorney Tom de
Wolfe to “prosecute it vigorously.”

In 1945 Iva
had married Filipe
J. d’Aquino,
who was born in Yokohama
of a Portuguese father and a Japanese mother. In 1948 the couple’s child, who Iva desperately wanted to be born in the United States,
died at birth. The two remained together until her conviction and then,
following decades of forced separation, they divorced in 1980. After Iva’s
release from prison, she could not get a U.S. passport to travel and d’Aquino,
while in San Francisco for the trial, had been told by the FBI never to return
to the United States, “or else.”)

The case against Iva Toguri
was flimsy at best. Something had to be done to strengthen it. So FBI agents in
Tokyo rounded
up all of those involved in the “Zero Hour” broadcasts and applied
the kind of pressure that most any Japanese-American at the time could
understand.

“We had no choice,” Oki told me in
1976 after I had convinced he and Mitsushio to meet me in Tokyo. “The FBI and U.S. Occupation
police told us we would have to testify against Iva
or else they said Uncle Sam might arrange a trial for us too—or worse. We were flown to San Francisco from Tokyo and
along with other government witnesses, we were told what to say and what not to
say two hours every morning for a month before the trial started.

“Even though I was a government
witness against her, I can say today that Iva Toguri
was innocent: she never did anything treasonable…she never said the words that
got her convicted,” Oki said. “It was all a lie. Iva never had a chance. And all I can say now is that
I am truly sorry for my part in her conviction. I hope she can find it in her
heart to forgive us.”

My stories containing details of Oki and
Mitsushio’s confession of perjury, as well as interviews with her former
husband Phil d”Aquino
and others who had worked with Iva on
the Zero Hour, appeared in March 1976 and were carried around the world.

On January 19, 1977, President Gerald Ford, in his last official act in office,
granted Iva Toguri a full and unconditional pardon.
While the historic pardon was an attempt to correct the injustice done to Iva Toguri,
the individual, it also served to raise awareness of the unfair treatment
Japanese-Americans received at the time from the federal and some state
governments.

The fact Iva Toguri
became the first person in American history to be pardoned following a treason
conviction, speaks volumes about her own indomitable spirit and the
determination of those who supported her crusade for justice, say leaders in
the Japanese-American community.

Others say the pardon also says something
about the deeply-ingrained sense of fair play that permeates American society
and which manifests itself, albeit sometimes belatedly, in the media, the
courts and, in Toguri’s case, the White House.

On July 4, 2006 Iva Toguri’s
turned 90. It was a bittersweet occasion because, as she told me, for almost 65
of those 90 years ‘I had to live with
the myth that I was “Tokyo Rose.”

Some vindication came several months before
her 90th birthday in a quiet, private ceremony held in a restaurant on Chicago’s
north side when Iva received the
Edward J. Herlihy Citzenship Award from the World War II Veterans Committee.
(Herlihy was a radio broadcaster who was known as the “Voice of WW II” for his
narration of Universal Newsreels). It was a twist of irony not lost on those in
attendance.

I was privileged to be one of those
invited to the ceremony, along with members of Iva’s family and a handful of
close friends like former CBS news anchor Bill Kurtis, who has known Iva since
the late 1960s; and Hollywood producer Barbara Trembley, whose years of work
will result in a major feature film from Paramount and director Frank Durabont
(“The Shawshank Redemption” and the “Green Mile”) about Iva and her struggles.

Iva pushed back tears as she accepted the
award.

“This is such a great honor,” she said.
“For so many years I wanted to be positive about this whole thing. I wanted to
honor my father and my family. They believed in me through all the things that
happened to me. I thank the World War II Veterans Committee for making this the
most memorable day of my life.”

Several years before, Iva and I met in the same restaurant. She had invited
me to dinner to thank me for the series of stories I had written that resulted
in the Presidential pardon. Incredibly, even though Iva
and I were linked by the stories I had written we had never met face to face.

“You know, if it hadn’t been for
those stories I never would have received my pardon,” Iva told me. “I would still be a criminal. You
started the ball rolling. And now, after all this time, I just want to say
thank you. Its long overdue.”

I hadn’t come to dinner in search of any
recognition or thanks. I just wanted to meet the woman whose story had
fascinated me years before and sent me on a search for the truth. I wanted
finally to separate the woman from the myth; to detach Iva Toguri
the person from “Tokyo Rose” the World War II caricature. I wanted to
meet the woman that fertile G.I. imaginations had turned into some torrid kimono-clad
Mata Hari.

The woman sitting across from me was
certainly no Mata
Hari. Here was a woman with kind
eyes, a gracious smile and an admirable ability to put things into perspective.

“I’ve put all that behind me
now,” Iva said, speaking of her ordeals in wartime Tokyo, in San Francisco’s federal
court and in prison.

“I’m only sorry that my father never
lived to see me pardoned. He died in 1972. But he believed in me until the end.

” ‘I’m proud of you Iva,’ he used to tell me. ‘You were like a
tiger…you never changed your stripes…you stayed American through and
through.’

“Am I bitter? No, what good does it
do to be bitter?” Iva said. Then
she thought for a moment. There were exceptions to that blanket forgiveness.

“In your stories Oki and Mitsushio
asked for my forgiveness. But how could I ever forgive them for what they did
to me?”

endit

(Ronald E. Yates, is a former award-winning foreign
correspondent for the Chicago Tribune and former Dean of the College of Media
at the University of Illinois)