Toguri, Iva (1916–)

American-born broadcaster. Name variations: Tokyo Rose; Ann; Orphan Annie; Iva Ikuko Toguri d'Aquino. Born Iva Ikuko Toguri in Los Angeles, California, July 4, 1916; dau. of June Toguri (shopkeeper and importer) and Fumi (Iimuro) Toguri; graduate of University of California, Los Angeles, 1940; m. Felipe d'Aquino, in Tokyo, 1945; children: 1 (stillborn).

American-born woman of Japanese descent, known as Tokyo Rose, who broadcast over Tokyo Radio during World War II and later was wrongly convicted of treason to America; responded to a Japanese aunt's invitation to visit the old country (1941); after bombing of Pearl Harbor, had to register as a foreign citizen; pressured by the Japanese authorities to declare herself a Japanese citizen, refused to do so; worked as a translator and typist at Japanese news agency (1942–43); was recruited by Allied prisoners of war to work on a propaganda radio show with Tokyo Radio (in their attempts to vitiate the propaganda); cooperated with the prisoners of war in their efforts to damage, rather than boost, Japanese propaganda; introduced light entertainment shows, with words written by one of the prisoners of war, for Tokyo Radio (1943–45); as a scapegoat, was singled out as Tokyo Rose, though she was only one among the 20 or more female English-speaking broadcasters; convicted of treason, though some of the government's witnesses were involved in perjury and a cover-up, was a prisoner of the US government (1949–56); became a shopkeeper in Chicago (1956); was granted a full pardon from President Gerald Ford (1977).

See also Masayo Duus, Tokyo Rose: Orphan of the Pacific (trans. by Peter Duus, Harper & Row, 1979); Russell Warren Howe, The Hunt for Tokyo Rose (Madison, 1990); and Women in World History.