Veterans embrace 'Tokyo Rose'

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Iva Toguri has lived a long time, but she said the "most memorable" day of her life came earlier this year when she was recognized by a group of U.S. military veterans.

The Chicago ceremony was rich with irony. The Edward J. Herlihy Citizenship Award, which the World War II Veterans Committee bestowed on 89-year-old Ms. Toguri at a January luncheon in Chicago, was named for a famous broadcaster whose narration of the Universal newsreels won him the moniker "The Voice of World War II."

Ms. Toguri was also a broadcaster -- once notoriously known as Tokyo Rose.

The January award was an important vindication of Ms. Toguri, who was sent to federal prison after being convicted of treason based on perjured testimony. Her American citizenship was stripped in 1949. President Ford restored it in 1977.

The irony-filled saga of this woman born on the Fourth of July -- in Los Angeles in 1916 -- is the kind of amazing story that sounds like a Hollywood script. Indeed, Paramount has a film of Ms. Toguri's life in the works, to be produced by Frank Darabont, best known for such films as "The Shawshank Redemption" and "The Green Mile."

The child of Japanese-American parents, Ms. Toguri grew up in a middle-class family determined to assimilate into the American mainstream. Ms. Toguri, who spoke almost no Japanese and hated Japanese food, was a Girl Scout, a Methodist and a Republican. She loved pop culture ("Orphan Annie" was her favorite cartoon character) and graduated from the University of California at Los Angeles, with plans to become a doctor.

Then, in June 1941, a letter arrived from her aunt, who had remained in Japan and was in failing health. She begged Ms. Toguri's mother to come to Japan for one last visit.

Ms. Toguri's mother also was in poor health, however. Her father and brother were busy running the family business, and so Ms. Toguri was sent instead, boarding a ship for what she expected would be a six-month visit to Tokyo.

Then came the December 7, 1941, Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor that brought the United States into World War II. Ms. Toguri found herself trapped in the capital of the Japanese empire, 7,000 miles from her American home.

Unlike some Japanese-Americans who found themselves stuck in wartime Japan under similar circumstances, Ms. Toguri resisted official pressure to renounce her U.S. citizenship.