FBI Files: Tokyo Rose

There are three parts to the FBI file on Tokyo Rose. The single person most identified with this term was Iva Toguri D'Aquino . The thing is, though, that there may have been up to a dozen women who used this pseudonym.

Some things I will just write a few words about, and some things I will include scans from the original work, especially things like the scripts for her broadcasts from Tokyo to American troops. It's a fascinating document to go through.

The files have a lot of material that is blacked out, but there's still lots of pages that are quite readable. there are several things which make it difficult to go through them, though. One are the blacked-out areas. Another is that, on some pages, the reproduction is so light and/or with parts almost missing that it's hard to make out what they say. The third problem is that, whoever was copying these pages, did not always put them on the copier correctly, so a slight part of the right side of the document may be missing. That might be just a letter or so, but it can also sometimes be longer than that.

As you can see, this is material obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.

Background information. The third page is that way in FOIA papers.

The part on citizenship continues.

Then the information on Radio Tokyo begins. Various people involved are covered. One of the most important parts is on page 13 when the report says that she knew the purpose of the program, that it was Japanese propaganda meant to undermine the American effort.

We will never know everything that we should know about this problem, though, since at the end of the war the Japanese burned as many documents as they could. These scripts also leave a tremendous amount of material out such as the contents of the news broadcasts. It would be interesting to see what kind of slant the news was presented with and how close, or how far, from reality the newscasts were.

The report then goes into a listing (with quite a bit of information) of those who could identify her voice from the broadcast. The document has established that Iva Toguri was at the station and working there of her own will. This part of the document will then establish that her specific voice can be identified as at least one of the Tokyo Rose announcers. It also establishes that at least some of these people actually knew she worked at the radio station. Below will be a few pieces of some of these interviews.

Establishing she did actual broadcasts.

This presents a more positive look at her.

An indication she wasn't doing this out of any love for the Japanese position. Other women that were hostesses on the program are named.

A signed statement from Toguri.

Next is a physical description of Toguri.

The fact that she had a slight speech impediment would make her somewhat easier to identify on a radio broadcast.

(A lot of the documents refer to orders to interview people and the results of those interviews. A primary target was whether or not Toguri could be physically identified by Tokyo Rose by Americans who had been captured. One of the documents in this section also confirms that the Tokyo Rose-associated broadcasts were not always done by the same person. All this material takes up quite a few pages of the report.)

One guy says her broadcasts did have a negative effect on morale.

This is directly contradicted in a different interview, showing how hard it is to find the actual truth in an investigation this complicated.

Then it's back to the other view of her effect on morale.

A list of what was done during the program.

The program was slightly altered to the above format.

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