It seems the defining moments in Iva Toguri’s life revolve around citizenship. Born on the 4th of July, 1916, Iva was the eldest daughter of Jun and Fumi Toguri, recent Japanese immigrants to the United States. She was the first Toguri to be an American citizen. Iva’s father, Jun, was one of the millions of immigrants from around the world who, over the past two and a quarter centuries, believed in the “American Dream,” and wanted nothing more than to make it come true for his family. Wishing to be recognized as true Americans, Jun insisted that his family assimilate into the local culture. English, not Japanese, was the language of choice in the Toguri household.
As a result, Iva grew up as a regular American girl living in southern California. She attended UCLA, and graduated with a degree in zoology with hopes of going on to medical school to become a doctor.

In early summer of 1941, Iva Toguri traveled to Japan to visit her aunt, who had been ill for some time. Her father and brother had considered going in her place, but decided against it. They were both born in Japan and might have faced problems returning to the United States, due to the passage of the Immigration Act of 1924 which severely limited the number of immigrants into the country.

From the outset, Iva felt completely misplaced in Japan. She could not speak the language well, and hated the food. However, it would soon become clear that these were the least of her worries. As 1941 progressed, tensions between the United States and Japan grew. With the possibility of war on the horizon, many American citizens of Japanese descent living in Japan scrambled to find a way out of the country, and back home. Among them was Iva Toguri. However, due to increasing suspicions on both sides and bureaucratic red tape, getting out of Japan proved difficult. A difficult task became nearly impossible when on December 7, 1941, Japan attacked Pear Harbor. Iva Toguri was trapped in a country now at war with her homeland.

An uncomfortable situation was now becoming dangerous. Iva’s aunt and uncle were targets of harassment for harboring one of the “enemy.” Iva decided that to spare her fragile aunt the grief, she would find someplace else to stay. As an American, Iva was subject to frequent visits from the feared tokko keisatu, Japan’s secret police force. The agents gave her a choice: renounce her American citizenship or be interned. Iva replied that she would prefer to be interned. However, because she was a woman and of Japanese descent, it was decided that Iva posed little threat. Plus, it she would cost the government money if she were interned. Better to leave her to fend for herself. Though thousands of other Americans of Japanese descent in Japan at the time renounced their citizenship, to do so was unthinkable for Iva Toguri. A stranger in a strange land, Iva was now on her own, and increasingly desperate for money. She found a room in a boarding house, and worked a number of odd jobs in order to make ends meet. She found a part-time job at the embassy of Denmark, which allowed her to hear news uncensored by Japanese officials. Not only did Japanese radio distort the news and perpetuate the belief that they were winning the war, it was illegal for the public to own or even listen to short-wave radios that could receive Allied broadcasts. Hearing the truth from sources outside the Empire gave Iva hope that the Allies would soon be victorious.

In summer of 1943, Iva read an advertisement calling for English-language typists at Radio Tokyo. She responded to the ad, and was quickly hired. On August 23, 1943, over 20 months following the attack on Pearl Harbor, Iva began her job at Radio Tokyo, intending on being nothing more than a typist. However, it was Iva Toguri’s experience there that would come to define the rest of her life.

Meanwhile, a legend was growing among American servicemen in the Pacific of a woman broadcasting Japanese propaganda over the radio, targeting the Allied forces fighting their way toward the heart of the empire. Throughout August of 1942, rumors of “Tokyo Rose,” an all-knowing reporter of the American troop plans in the Pacific, spread among the Marines fighting on Guadalcanal. To be sure, the Japanese recognized the value of propaganda, and throughout 1942 and 1943, the Imperial military bolstered its propaganda efforts by monitoring domestic radio broadcasts in the United States, gleaning news of local disasters such as floods, fires, and train-wrecks, then re-broadcasting the news in an effort to demoralize American troops in the field. Many of these broadcasts were made by women. On August 20, 1943, the first documented press account of Tokyo Rose appeared in YANK Magazine. This was three days before Iva Toguri was to begin her work at Radio Tokyo as a typist.

In late 1943, the Japanese military decided to test a new concept in its campaign to demoralize American servicemen: force Allied POWs to appear on a program written by Japanese army propagandists. The POW camps were scoured for men with broadcasting experience to produce a new show called Zero Hour. Three men were chosen: Capt. Wallace Ince, an American; Lt. Norman Reyes, a Filipino; and Maj. Charles Cousens, an Australian who was already well known for his work with Radio Sydney and was tapped to run the show. All three had resisted cooperation, but in light of the brutal treatment they received in the POW camps, there was little choice but to do what they were told.

Zero Hour proved popular among its targeted audience—the American servicemen in the Pacific—if not especially effective in its purpose. The show consisted mainly of music, and Cousens, in an effort to sabotage the program, had convinced his captors to give him control over writing the scripts, arguing that the Japanese scriptwriters’ English was so poor, it was bound to be mocked by the American GIs. In fact, Cousens fully intended that the program should be mocked, rendering it useless as a propaganda tool. Unaware of Cousens’ intentions, but fully aware of the popularity of the program, the Japanese decided to expand it. Two former-Americans who had given up their citizenship, Kenkichi Oki and George Mitsushio, were hired to assist in writing the scripts. Hoping to further appeal to the American servicemen in the Pacific, the Japanese ordered Cousens to add a female announcer to the show. Cousens was reluctant to do so, as he did not want to make any changes that might lessen his control over the show, but the order had come down. However, rather than choose one of the many women at Radio Tokyo who were experienced in broadcasting, Cousens instead decided upon using a young typist who had never once set foot in a studio: Iva Toguri.

Eager to meet others who shared her pro-American sympathies, Iva Toguri had quickly introduced herself to Cousens, Ince, and Reyes upon their arrival at Radio Tokyo. The POWs were understandably wary of her friendliness, as they suspected she might be a spy for the Japanese secret police. But Iva worked to earn their trust, bringing them food and vitamins, as well as news of Allied victories she had learned at the Danish embassy. Convinced that her loyalties were to the Allied cause, Cousens believed Iva to be the perfect choice to help continue his mission to sabotage the Japanese propaganda machine. Though she protested that she had no experience in radio, Cousens assured Iva that he would coach her, and that the program would be straight entertainment, not propaganda.

Under Cousens’ direction, Iva took to the air, adopting the name “Orphan Ann.” She appeared on Zero Hour for about three minutes per show, introducing records with scripts written by Cousens himself. The music was upbeat, a conscious effort to avoid anything that might make the listening servicemen feel homesick. Scripts were joking in nature, and Cousens encouraged Iva to purposely mispronounce words, adding to the lunacy of the program. Sometimes this subtle sabotage bordered on blatant revolt against the Japanese in-charge, as when Zero Hour blared “The Stars and Stripes Forever” over the airwaves following the American invasion of Saipan.

By the time World War II ended, the legend of “Tokyo Rose” had taken on a life of its own. Countless references had been made to her among the American media, and she was well known to the GIs serving in the Pacific. However, an official investigation by the American military found that there was no such person, that the name was an invention among American GIs referring to a number of women who broadcast over Japanese radio. Still, some in the media persisted in their search for the “one, true Tokyo Rose.” The Japanese were well aware that being identified as “Tokyo Rose” could create a number of problems for that woman, and anybody associated with her. Iva Toguri proved an easy scapegoat for the Japanese, as she was one of these many women who had appeared on the radio, and due to her open support of the Allied cause, there were few who were willing to go out of their way to protect her.

A media firestorm ensued, as Iva was now being touted as the one and only Tokyo Rose. She was detained by the American military, and eventually returned to the United States where she was to be tried on eight counts of treason. Ironically, Iva was only eligible to be tried for treason because she was a citizen of the United States. Had she given up her American citizenship, as so many others livingin Japan had done, she could not have been tried at all. In a sad twist of fate, Iva’s loyalty to America was to be used against her. In the most expensive trial in U.S. history to that point, Iva was convicted on one count of treason, largely on the testimony of her former Radio Tokyo colleagues, Oki and Mitsushio. She was sentenced to ten years in prison, and stripped of the very citizenship that she had fought so hard to keep while stranded in Japan.

Almost immediately, questions arose about the trial. The case against her was weak, and due to the media hysteria surrounding the ordeal, it appeared that the government was more interested in convicting the myth of Tokyo Rose than the actual person of Iva Toguri. Over the years, the truth gradually came to light. In 1976, Oki and Mitsushio, the two men whose testimony was most responsible for Iva’s conviction, admitted to journalist Ron Yates that they had lied—committed perjury—during the trial, after being pressured by the government.

To those familiar with the case, it was becoming more and more obvious that Iva Toguri was innocent. In his last act in office, President Gerald Ford granted Iva a full and complete pardon, declaring that she had been wrongfully convicted and restoring the American citizenship that she held so dear. Though her conviction was erased and her citizenship returned, Iva Toguri has never been able to fully escape from the shadow of Tokyo Rose. We have all heard the myth of Tokyo Rose for so long that, when confronted with the truth, are reluctant to believe it. The truth is that Iva Toguri was, and is, a proud American citizen, whose loyalty was never in doubt. And through a sad twist of fate, for the last sixty years she has carried the burden of being mislabeled as one of the most infamous symbols of World War II. The World War II Veterans Committee is proud to join in the effort to set the record straight, and to honor a woman who treasured her citizenship so much, she was willing to lose everything.