Glenn Beck - Miracles and Massacres - True and Untold Stories of the Making of America

Lee nodded. The military was concerned about guerrilla attacks so reporters had been ordered to stay out of Tokyo until they were given a green light that it was safe. But Lee loved the big scoop and knew they only came to those willing to take a few risks.

“Suppose I agree,” Lee said. “What’s our story when we get there? Seems like everyone already knows the war is over.”

Brundidge smiled. “Tokyo Rose. The whole world wants to know who she is. Our Japanese friends will help us find her.”

Lee was intrigued. The mystery of Tokyo Rose was one of the hottest stories around. If they found her and got her to talk, then Brundidge and Lee could write the first articles about her—Brundidge for Cosmopolitan and Lee for the International News Service . It was a potentially career-making scoop.

Lee pictured the large-type, front-page headline and then shook Brundidge’s meaty palm. “I’m in.”

Tokyo

August 31, 1945

Iva was ecstatic.

Leslie Nakashima, a Japanese newsman, had just called and asked if she’d be willing to tell two American reporters about her experience as Tokyo Rose in exchange for two thousand dollars. Iva replied she’d never heard of “Tokyo Rose,” but Nakashima explained that it was simply the name Allied soldiers had given to English-language radio hosts in the Pacific and Iva certainly qualified.

Between needing the money and wanting Americans to know how her and Cousens had foiled Japanese propaganda efforts with Zero Hour , her answer came fast.

“Tell me where and when to meet them.”

Tokyo

Morning, September 1, 1945

Iva Toguri walked into room 312 of the Imperial Hotel with Leslie Nakashima and her husband, Phil d’Aquino, without a care in the world. The war was over, the Allies had won, and now she was about to make seven times more money in a single morning than she’d made during her entire time in Tokyo.

Casting her eyes on a short man pouring a glass of bourbon, and then on his taller, fitter colleague, Iva was happy to finally have a chance to talk about her small role in helping the American war effort. She knew these men would help bring that part of the story back to the United States.

“Good morning,” said the taller man. “I’m Clark Lee from the International News Service and this is Harry Brundidge from Cosmopolitan magazine.”

Iva shook hands with the men and they all sat down. Brundidge got right to the point. “So, you are Tokyo Rose?”

Iva detected a little hostility in his voice. “Mr. Brundidge,” she replied politely, “there are five or six girls to whom that name should apply. I am just one of them.”

“You worked at Radio Tokyo,” Brundidge replied. “You announced introductions to records. You were a sort of disc jockey, weren’t you?”

“Yes,” said Iva.

Lee turned to Nakashima. “You told us that you went to Radio Tokyo and someone there gave you her name?”

Nakashima nodded. Iva had no idea Nakashima had been paid $250 by Lee and Brundidge for identifying “Tokyo Rose.”

“Then she will do!” said Lee, grinning. “Now, let’s get to her story.”

With that, Clark Lee unpacked his typewriter, and Harry Brundidge, for reasons that Iva did not yet fully understand, locked the hotel room’s door.

Tokyo

Afternoon, September 1, 1945

After everyone had left his hotel room, Clark Lee fed a blank piece of paper into his typewriter and stared at it. The interview that had just concluded had not gone according to plan. For starters, he’d expected someone who looked, or at least sounded , like a femme fatale. This Iva woman didn’t fit the bill. More important, Iva had denied broadcasting any propaganda: Nothing about unfaithful wives, the horrors of warfare, or the fictitious sinking of American ships.

Nevertheless, and despite her protests that she was just one of many hosts, Iva had eventually agreed to sign a paper saying she was “the one and original Tokyo Rose.” That should have been good enough, but now, as Lee stared at the blank white paper in his typewriter, he was starting to have second thoughts.

Part of Lee’s hesitation was that he had personally heard a broadcast by a woman whom the troops had called “Tokyo Rose” in 1942—a year before Iva said she’d began working at Radio Tokyo. That got his mind running. How many Tokyo Roses were out there? And which of them had actually broadcast propaganda?

Clark Lee stared for a while longer. He knew that if Iva hadn’t committed treason against her country, then he had no scoop. On the other hand, she had signed the statement.

Finally, he made up his mind and his fingers began pecking away at the keys.

TRAITOR’S PAY: TOKYO ROSE GOT 100 YEN A MONTH . . . $6.60.

In an exclusive interview with this correspondent . . .

Tokyo

October 17, 1945

As Iva finished washing her hair, she heard a knock on the door. Another reporter , she thought to herself.

After the publication of Clark Lee’s article—which, to Iva’s shock and horror, had portrayed her as a traitor to her country—the media had gone into a feeding frenzy. Interviews had been followed by a press conference, which was followed by intensive questioning by investigators from the Eighth Army’s Counter Intelligence Corps. Through it all, Iva had answered every question asked of her. She knew that she had nothing to hide and was convinced that no one would believe her to be a traitor once they’d heard the full story about her time on the radio.

Iva opened the door, her dark hair still wet. Three officers and a master sergeant from the Army Counter Intelligence Corps stood on her front porch.

Iva Toguri was under arrest.

Tokyo

July 4, 1946

It was her birthday, but after spending the last eight months in prison, Iva Toguri was not in a celebratory mood. Showering at Tokyo’s Sugamo prison, where many Japanese war criminals were also being held, Iva felt sad and alone. She missed her husband, whom she was only allowed to see for twenty minutes a month. She missed Charles Cousens, who had been sent back to Australia, where he told military authorities that Iva was innocent of any wrongdoing. She missed her father and siblings, whom she’d not seen in five years. And, most of all, she grieved for her mother, who, unbeknownst to Iva until now, had died three years earlier in a Japanese-American internment camp.

As Iva emerged from the shower stall, she stopped suddenly and screamed. She had been through a lot of surreal experiences in recent years, but this was the most bizarre of all. Peering through a window and into the foggy bathroom like they were viewing a circus act were sixteen well-dressed men.

She did not know it, but they were all United States congressmen.

Tokyo

October 25, 1946

Amid the popping of reporters’ flashbulbs and the shouting of questions, Iva Toguri ran through the lobby of Sugamo prison and into the arms of her smiling husband. After a year behind bars, Iva was being unconditionally released by the United States military due to lack of evidence.

She took the bouquet of flowers that Phil had brought for her and smiled. It was a new beginning, a chance to put this nightmare behind her and return to her life in California.

Or so she thought.

Tokyo

January 5, 1948

Iva had cried for so long that her eyes had run dry. It was hard not to think of everything that had brought her to this point and wonder if it all would have been different had she not been so naïve.

It had now been over a year since the U.S. State Department told her that she was in a line of ten thousand second-generation Americans stranded in Japan waiting for approval to return to America. Now she wondered if that was just another lie.