<Begin Segment 23>

TI: And one that you mentioned earlier, that he worked on the Iva Toguri case.

TN: Yeah.

TI: Did you help him with that case?

TN: Oh, yeah, I helped him in connection to interviews in Japan, you know. We went to Tokyo to interview all these people because, to take a deposition of all these witnesses. And that was the time when, 1949, so we still had to get MacArthur's clearance to get in.

TI: Oh, so that was a very high profile case.

TN: Yeah, yeah.

TI: And how, I guess maybe I'm thinking, I think back to the media and how they sensationalized the whole story. I mean, what were some of the things that you guys had to prove in terms of her innocence?

TN: That we had to prove that she never made those broadcasts. Then we found out there were not one Tokyo Rose, there were about ten of them. And then we got information pertaining to the... and we found out that she was so pro-American that a lot of people in Japan advised her not to be pro-American, you know. You had to keep quiet in time of war in Japan. And that's the reason why the prisoner of war trusted her more than anything else. They wanted some, a female voice that they could trust, and she was the one that was elected. And a professor, Major Cousen from Australia, he was in the broadcast business, so he coached her and made her a top notch announcer.

TI: And yet, with that, she was convicted.

TN: Yeah, because the government, the only reason why this case occurred was Winchell and those people, they wanted to get those girls. Because she was more popular than... they were looking for her than the emperor. [Laughs]

TI: And so do you think it was more like political pressure?

TN: Yeah, political pressure. And Brundage, the newspaper fellow, he wanted to start this case. He would keep on urging the government to go after her. And she was cleared by the army, you know, right after the war, CIC. And Brundage is the one that forced the Justice Department to start this thing again. And we found out in Japan that he tried to get a lot of people to testify against her, make up a lot of things. And we found out this Brundage gave his suit to one guy to testify against her. So we got this guy in and took a deposition, and we got this and brought it back to the States. We were gonna say, "Put Brundage on the stand." The government would never put Brundage on the stand. He was the one that was motivating a lot of people. And people in Japan were starving that time, so a lot of people, to just get ten dollars a day on the trial, that was big money for those people that testified against her. Some people would refuse to come, Mitsushio and John Oki, they testified against her. What she said, "You lost all your ships, how are you gonna come home?" That was the thing they said. But we had... that trial, I sat through all that trial, but I thought we could have won that case if it wasn't for this Filipino guy, Ens. No, not Ens, Reyes. He gave a statement to the government, and he wanted to get out so he blamed her, see. And we didn't know that, and he would never tell us what statement he gave to the government. We put him on the stand and the government really killed them. And if it wasn't for that, I think we could have won the case.

TI: I'm sorry, so you put him on the stand, so what did he say on the stand that was so damaging?

TN: Well, he made a statement in favor of Iva when we put him on the stand. Then in the cross examination, they had a written statement from him already. So they keep on, "So and so, didn't you say this? Didn't you say this?" you know. Opposite things. So they discredited him, so they didn't know. That destroyed the case.

TI: So this was one of your witnesses that you thought was going to help you, but the government had this written, previous written statement that they used to discredit.

TN: Discredit him. But they tried to get a statement from Cousen, too, when he landed. Collins went in there and stopped it, cussed him down. [Laughs]

TI: So that must have been a difficult case to lose, because you had all this information, did this research, and you eventually...

TN: Then, you know, right after the war, there was the Axis Sally case, remember, the German lady? She was convicted. So it was pretty hard to win that case. Still the anti-Japanese feeling was very strong.

TI: Now, were you involved at all with the, later on, the pardon of her?

TN: No. I wasn't involved.

TI: Okay. 'Cause she was pardoned, I think it was President Ford.

<End Segment 23> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.