Tokyo Rose / An American Patriot: A Dual Biography »

Tokyo Rose / An American Patriot explores the parallel lives of World War II legend Tokyo Rose and a Japanese American woman named Iva Toguri. Trapped in Tokyo during the war and forced to broadcast on Japanese radio, Toguri steadfastly refused to renounce her U.S. citizenship and surreptitiously aided Allied POWs. Despite these patriotic actions, she foolishly identified herself to the press after the war as Tokyo Rose. This book assembles a collection of images from American pre-war popular culture that provided impetus for the legend of Tokyo Rose and analyzes the wartime situation of servicemen, which caused their imaginations to create the mythical femme fatale even though no Japanese announcer ever used the name Tokyo Rose.

Publishers Weekly

Starred Review.

One of WWII's most sensational stories was that of Tokyo Rose: a Japanese radio propagandist who demoralized American soldiers with stories of their wives' infidelity and impossibly accurate knowledge of U.S. troop movements. The Tokyo Rose story thrilled and horrified Americans, especially when an American citizen, Iva Toguri, was arrested for being the nefarious broadcaster-the problem, the U.S. government soon realized, was that Toguri was forced into the position of propagandist, had not actually broken any laws, and had even helped American POWs. Still, public opinion demanded that they prosecute, and she was ultimately convicted of treason. By treating Tokyo Rose, the Pacific legend, and Iva Toguri, the American citizen trapped by circumstance, as separate people, Close reaches into the heart of Cold War tension. Meticulously researched, Close's case explains not only why Toguri was not a traitor, but also why the American people, in a time of desperation, needed to believe she was. The result will prove compelling and readable for those interested in the Pacific theater, propaganda studies, or the history of the Cold War; though lengthy, Close makes his 500-plus pages worthwhile with a rich sense of context and detailed notes.

Editor's Foreword

Acknowledgments xi

Introduction xiii

1 Baseball Paths and Two-Lane Blacktops: Youth at Full Speed (1916-1940) 1

2 A Fateful Letter in Failing Light (1940-1941) 27

3 Tokyo Rose: Origins of the Legend (Prewar) 41

4 Collision with Japan: Before Pearl Harbor (1941) 67

5 At War and on Her Own (1942) 83

6 The Toguris Back Home: Internment (1942-1945) 107

7 Barely Surviving: A Typist at Radio Tokyo (1943) 133

8 A New Career in Broadcasting: Zero Hour (1943-1944) 155

9 Tokyo Rose: The Legend of the Radio Siren (Wartime) 181

10 Black Marketeer: The Destruction of Imperial Japan (1944) 215

11 War's End (1945) 241

12 The Scoop (1945) 255

13 CIC and FBI Investigations: Exoneration and Release (1946-1947) 275

14 Into the Cold War: A Furor Grows (1947-1948) 297

15 The Perjurors: The FBI at Work (1948-1949) 321

16 The Prosecution: United States v. Tokyo Rose (1949) 357

17 The Defense: Iva Toguri v. Tokyo Rose (1949) 391

18 The Verdict: United States v. Iva Toguri (1949) 437

19 Alderson Federal Reformatory: Failed Appeals (1950-1959) 447

20 The Quest for a Pardon (1960-2006) 479

Epilogue 505

Appendix: The Indictment 509

Bibliography 511

Index 515

About the Author 521