Sayonara, Tokyo Rose

Iva Toguri D'Aquino, a.k.a. Tokyo Rose, has died of natural causes at the age of 90.

Convicted in a highly questionable trial in 1949 and sentenced to 10 years in the clink (she served six), Aquino was eventually pardoned by Gerald Ford (he did a lot of that, didn't he?), after a Chicago Tribune reporter revealed that most of the testimony against her was faked. Originally seen as a treasonous traitor, the legacy of Tokyo Rose has everything to do with war-time hysteria and racism.

Speaking of odious war-time treatment of Japanese Americans, historian Eric Muller reviewed Michelle Malkin's The Case for Internment here.

Comments

[Hydroman]

Wrong Buckwheat, there were internment camps during WWII in Texas for Itialian and German prisoners suspected of war related crimes.
One of the camps was in Crystal City , about 35 miles from my home.

[SR]

"Wrong Buckwheat, there were internment camps during WWII in Texas for Itialian and German prisoners suspected of war related crimes."

Where does the original post say otherwise?

[hummbumm]

Yes but not German Americans. These were actual German soldiers...

[downstater]

further, there is a difference between being suspected of a crime and suspected of being japanese.

[downstater]

further, there is a difference between being suspected of a crime and suspected of being japanese.

[Justin Slotman]

You know--until I read that Wiki link I had no idea who she was (outside of knowing the name "Tokyo Rose.) What an amazing life. I can't imagine how she felt being imprisoned for treason after spending four years in Japan refusing to renounce her American citizenship.

[Rick H.]

"Wrong Buckwheat, there were internment camps during WWII in Texas for Itialian and German prisoners suspected of war related crimes."

Where does the original post say otherwise?

Nowhere. For xenophobes, the non sequitur is the rhetorical tool of choice. Also, he got to call somebody "Buckwheat."

[Stevo Darkly]

Was she hot?

[Mark B.]

You know, I'm grateful to Malkin for writing that book - I'd never heard of her before seeing it in Borders, and after 10 pages I knew that she was a know-nothing polemicist. I've never had to pay any attention to her since.

I had a number of relatives who spent some quality time in those camps in the 40's, including several who were born in Southern California and considered themselves average American teenagers. As far as I know, none of them had been contacted by the Imperial Japanese government to conduct espionage activities, and many of them could barely speak Japanese anyway. No matter - if the Hearst press said they were traitors-in-waiting, it must have been true.

[Jim Walsh]

I just found out recently that there was an internment camp for German-Americans not far from where I now live in North Dakota.

[gutta percha]

I bought my Go board and stones from her at a shop on Belmont Ave in the 1960s.