IVA

A debut historical work focuses on the woman who was turned into World War II’s legendary Tokyo Rose.

The name Tokyo Rose conjures up images of a powerfully seductive Japanese woman demoralizing homesick American soldiers through radio propaganda during the brutal years of World War II in the Pacific. How that label was affixed to Iva Toguri, a Japanese American, is a tragic and complicated story recounted by Weedall in this book. Toguri may have been guilty of naiveté and misplaced faith in the American judicial system, but she was primarily a victim of consistently being in the wrong place at the wrong time. In July 1941, as a 25-year-old aspiring medical student, she dutifully obeyed her parents and went to Japan to bring greetings and gifts from her prosperous family to her aunt’s poor one. Her stay there was a disaster, and for several months, Toguri tried to return to the United States, but there were obstacles. When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, she could not return home and became an enemy alien. Abandoned by her relatives, she refused to renounce her American citizenship. She was coerced into working for Radio Tokyo as one of the many Japanese American women who introduced songs and read copy on frequent broadcasts. She tried covertly to sabotage all propaganda efforts and was under constant pressure from her Japanese bosses. At the war’s end, she became a hapless victim of intense anti-Japanese sentiment, spearheaded by the powerful tabloid columnist Walter Winchell, and, through perjured testimony and FBI misconduct, was tried and convicted of treason in a biased court proceeding. Toguri served time in prison and was paroled in 1956. She was finally granted a presidential pardon in 1977. The story is gripping, and Weedall recounts Toguri’s years of isolation, prison, and particularly her Kafkaesque trial with excellent pacing and a keen eye for drama. The prosecutor told the jury: “This is one of the most despicable cases of treason against our country at a time of national emergency.” The singular focus on Toguri omits some historical context: The Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings are only mentioned in one sentence. Undated chapters often leave readers unclear of the precise chronology. But while the mostly fictionalized dialogue is sometimes strained, the court proceedings and testimony are well documented, providing rich and evocative details.

An armchair historian delivers a remarkably compelling story of justice denied.