The Tokyo Rose Case: Treason on Trial

209 Pages·2013·1.61 MB·English

by  Yasuhide Kawashima

The Tokyo Rose Case
landmark law cases
&
american society Peter Charles Hoffer
N. E. H. Hull
Series Editors
recent titles in the series: Prigg v. Pennsylvania, H. Robert Baker
The Detroit School Busing Case, Joyce A. Baugh The DeShaney Case, Lynne Curry
The Battle over School Prayer, Bruce J. Dierenfield Fighting Foreclosure, John A. Fliter and Derek S. Hoff
Little Rock on Trial, Tony A. Freyer
One Man Out: Curt Flood versus Baseball, Robert M. Goldman The Free Press Crisis of 1800, Peter Charles
Hoffer The Treason Trials of Aaron Burr, Peter Charles Hoffer The Woman Who Dared to Vote: The Trial
of Susan B. Anthony, N. E. H. Hull Roe v. Wade: The Abortion Rights Controversy in American History, 2nd
ed., revised and expanded, N. E. H. Hull and Peter Charles Hoffer Plessy v. Ferguson: Race and Inequality in
Jim Crow America,
Williamjames Hull Hoffer
Gibbons v. Ogden: John Marshall, Steamboats, and the Commerce Clause,
Herbert A. Johnson
Gitlow v. New York, Marc Lendler
Fugitive Slave on Trial: The Anthony Burns Case and Abolitionist Outrage,
Earl M. Maltz
The Snail Darter Case, Kenneth M. Murchison Capital Punishment on Trial, David M. Oshinsky The
Michigan Affirmative Action Cases, Barbara A. Perry The Sodomy Cases, David A. J. Richards
The Supreme Court and Tribal Gaming, Ralph A. Rossum Mendez v. Westminster, Philippa Strum
The Sleepy Lagoon Murder Case: Race Discrimination and Mexican-American Rights,
Mark A. Weitz
The Miracle Case, Laura Wittern-Keller and Raymond J. Haberski, Jr.
The Zoning of America: Euclid v. Ambler, Michael Allan Wolf Bush v. Gore: Exposing the Hidden Crisis in
American Democracy,
abridged and updated, Charles L. Zelden
For a complete list of titles in the series go to www.kansaspress.ku.edu
YASUHIDE KAWASHIMA
The Tokyo Rose Case
_____________________
Treason on Trial
_____________________
UNIVERSITY PRESS OF KANSAS
© 2013 by the University Press of Kansas All rights reserved Published by the University Press of Kansas
(Lawrence, Kansas 66045), which was organized by the Kansas Board of Regents and is operated and funded
by Emporia State University, Fort Hays State University, Kansas State University, Pittsburg State University,
the University of Kansas, and Wichita State University Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Kawashima, Yasuhide, 1931– The Tokyo Rose case : treason on trial / Yasuhide Kawashima.
pages cm.—(Landmark law cases & American society) Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-7006-1904-7 (cloth : alk. paper)—ISBN 978-0-7006-1905-4 (paperback : alk. paper) ISBN
978-0-70061979-5 (ebook) 1. Tokyo Rose, 1916–2006—Trials, litigation, etc.
2. Trials (Treason)—California—San Francisco. I. Title.
KF224.T63K39 2013
345.73′0231—dc23
2012049234
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data is available.
Printed in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
The paper used in this publication is recycled and contains 30 percent postconsumer waste.
It is acid free and meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence of
Paper for Printed Library Materials Z39.48-1992.
For A. Russell Buchanan
Alexander DeConde
Wilbur R. Jacobs
Otey M. Scruggs
CONTENTS
Editors’ Preface
Preface and Acknowledgments
Introduction: Guilty!
1. Born on the Fourth of July
2. “Aunt Shizu Is Sick”
3. A Dozen Roses
4. The American Paparazzi
5. The Attorney General’s Abrupt Decision
6. Assembling Witnesses and the Jury Selection
7. The Prosecution’s Case
8. The Defense Rebuttal
9. The Verdict and the Sentence
10. Appeals, Threat of Deportation, and Pardon
Conclusion: Prosecutorial Misconduct and the Coram Nobis Relief
Chronology
Bibliographical Essay
Index
editors’ preface Stories of palpable injustice,
particularly when the victim is sympathetic,
have the power to both move our emotions and
rouse our indignation. The trials of Iva Ikuko
Toguri d’Aquino in Japan, as an American
citizen trapped during World War II, and in
the United States, after she returned, fit
this description. A woman of valor mistreated
by both of the warring nations during and
after—long after—the conflict was over, is
now shown in her true colors by Yasuhide
Kawashima. “Tokyo Rose,” the name that
Americans gave her, never really fit, but when
she finally departed Tokyo, she found that
American justice was no fairer to her than
Japanese officialdom.
Kawashima’s account is deeply rooted in the Japanese language sources, to
which he had unparalleled access, the American legal sources, which he fully
exploited, and the cultures of both nations. Because of his multicultural heritage,
his thorough research, and his abiding commitment to justice in this case, he pulls
no punches. There are heroes and villains aplenty, in both the United States and
Japan: prosecutors who sought to build careers on her conviction for voluntarily
betraying her country, defense counsel who braved public censure to prove her
innocence of treason, and above all ordinary men and women who befriended her
because of her personal qualities.
In 1977, Iva was finally pardoned by President Gerald Ford, an act of belated
grace for which both houses of the California legislature and the city governments
of San Francisco and Los Angeles, among others, had pleaded. Los Angeles’s act
was especially moving, in light of the city’s 1948 resolution that she not be
allowed to return from Japan. Interwoven in Iva’s story are larger ones—of the
internment of thousands of loyal Japanese Americans during the war; of the
meaning of citizenship and the nation’s commitment to the ideal of fair trial; and
of the place that tabloid journalism has in our culture. Yet first and foremost, Iva’s
story is hers—a story that Yasuhide Kawashima has been waiting to tell for many
years. No one will read it and come away unimpressed.