“Did you at any time whatsoever commit treason against the United States?”
There it was, the word that had haunted her since Clark Lee’s “Traitor’s Pay” article; the word that had been flung around recklessly by Walter Winchell and Harry Brundidge for the past two years: traitor.
Iva’s anger and outrage were boiling inside her, but she kept her emotions in check, offering only the slightest glimpse of them by the forcefulness with which she replied to Collins’s last question.
“Never.”
San Francisco
September 29, 1949
Rising to her feet as the judge and jurors entered the courtroom, Iva stared down at her tan plaid skirt, the same unflattering, out-of-style one she’d ironed in her jail cell every night and worn to her trial every day.
“Has the jury arrived at a verdict?” asked Michael Roche, the seventy-two-year-old federal judge who had issued jury instructions that were extremely detrimental to the defense. Roche had told the jurors that they were not to consider Iva’s giving of food and medicine when judging her intentions. They were also forbidden to consider her refusal, even in the face of constant intimidation from the secret police, to renounce her American citizenship.
It was 6:04 P.M. on the fourth day of jury deliberations and it seemed that another full day and night was about to pass with no resolution in sight. No one in the courtroom expected that a verdict had been reached.
The judge didn’t expect it. He had recently suggested to the jurors that they take a break for dinner.
The spectators didn’t expect it. If a verdict had been likely at this hour, there would have been more than forty people in the largely empty courtroom.
The press didn’t expect it. Only ten journalists were milling around the courtroom at this late hour.
And Iva certainly didn’t expect it—though by this point she had pretty much lost all faith in her ability to predict events. She once thought that after the jurors heard the defense witnesses and her own testimony, an acquittal would come quickly. But her confidence had been shaken by the four days of jury deliberations. “If they go more than a day,” her attorney had told her, “it’s not a good sign.”
In response to Judge Roche’s question of whether the jury had reached a verdict, John Mann, the pleasant bookkeeper acting as jury foreman, replied, “We have, Your Honor.”
The court clerk took the verdict form from Mann. He passed it to the judge, who read it in silence, before returning it to the clerk, who broke the silence with a single word.
“Guilty.”
EPILOGUE
Chicago, Illinois
Forty years later: January 13, 1989
The Toguri Mercantile shop on North Clark Street was closed for the evening. Iva sat at her small desk in the back room, reviewing the day’s receipts and filling out quarterly tax forms. For more than three decades, she had worked at the store her father founded. Now, at seventy-three years old, she was the store’s owner, manager, accountant, and primary salesperson.
Most of the store’s customers had no idea that the petite shopkeeper had once been convicted of treason. Or that she had lost her American citizenship upon her conviction, had served more than six years in federal prison, and had then barely escaped deportation when her enemies tried to expel her from the country as an “undesirable alien” after her release. They certainly did not know that the government had destroyed her marriage by barring her husband from entering the country.
These customers also did not know that John Mann, the jury foreman, had quickly come to regret the verdict he and two other holdouts had begrudgingly been persuaded by the other nine jurors to approve. They could not have known that Thomas DeWolfe, who had been instrumental in taking six years of Iva’s life, had taken his own just three years earlier.
And they had no idea that the owner of the Toguri Mercantile shop had received a full, unconditional pardon from the president of the United States in 1977. In doing so, Gerald Ford had finally returned to Iva Toguri the one thing she had so defiantly clung to for so many years: her American citizenship.
As Iva closed the account books, marking the end of another fourteen-hour workday, she glanced at the photograph on her desk of a distinguished-looking man with a confident, charming smile.
And after all these years, she was still comforted by Charles Cousens.
Seventeen years later: January 16, 2006
Iva had tried to keep her emotions bottled up inside her during the trial. But now, at a solemn ceremony in downtown Chicago, the eighty-nine-year-old saw no reason to hold them back any longer.
“Throughout an ordeal that has lasted decades,” declared a broad-shouldered, aging World War II veteran, who was more than a head taller than the ceremony’s guest of honor, “Iva Toguri has endured her fate with dignity, courage, and a deep faith in God and in the essential fairness of the American system.”
As Iva wiped tears from her face, the veteran continued: “For her indomitable spirit, her love of country, and the example of courage she has given her fellow Americans, the World War II Veterans Committee proudly bestows the 2005 Edward J. Herlihy Citizenship Award on Iva Toguri.”
During the same time that Iva was trying to cheer up American soldiers and sailors in the Pacific, Edward Herlihy had become so famous announcing newsreels that he had been called “The Voice of World War II.” After being the object of a media witch hunt, it was one of life’s great ironies that Iva was now about to accept an award named after an American journalist.
As the veteran draped the medal around her neck, Iva thought of how much her reputation had changed in sixty years, but how little her patriotism and idealism had. She had regrets but no bitterness. She still loved America, despite what its press and government had done to her.
Facing the standing crowd and its thunderous applause, she thought back to the first time she’d seen the malnourished Charles Cousens. She thought of the first lines she’d spoken into a microphone at Radio Tokyo. And, finally, she thought of her father’s first words to her when she’d returned to California to stand trial for treason.
“I’m proud of you, girl. You didn’t change your stripes.”
10
The Battle of Athens: Repeated Petitions, Repeated Injuries
Athens, Tennessee
August 3, 1936
On the outskirts of a small mountain town in east Tennessee, twelve-year-old Bill White picked berries. By force of habit, he walked on the inner sides of his soles. The outer sides had begun to wear out, and his parents wouldn’t have money for another pair until Christmas. Not that he was complaining. He earned a dime a day for picking his neighbor’s blackberries from sunup to sundown. He could have saved up for some new clothes if he cared to.
Instead, the dime always went toward a movie ticket. On a good day, one of the two theaters in town was showing a western. Bill loved John Wayne. His cause was always just, his aim always true. The Daily Post-Athenian called the young actor’s early films B-movies, but Bill didn’t pay much attention to the newspaper. He could neither afford a copy nor read much of it. There were schools in McMinn County, but not good ones.
After about twenty minutes, a voice from the distance called, “Billy! Dinner!”
The broad-shouldered boy kept picking the berries.
“Billy!”
It had become a familiar routine for Ma White, who had already walked a quarter of a mile to call him home. She knew he liked to daydream, and she didn’t mind hiking all the way past the outhouse and past the neighbor’s barn with the “Paul Cantrell for Sheriff” sign on it to shake her son back into the here and now.
“Billy!” she tried one last time. But there was no response. The music of The Lone Ranger was playing in his head, and scenes from last night’s radio show were flashing through his imagination: The hero’s galloping horse, the silver bullets flying through the air, and the victory over a brutal band of cutthroats who had been terrorizing a small town. “I believe,” said the Lone Ranger’s creed, “in being prepared physically, mentally, and morally to fight when necessary for that which is right.”
It was Bill White’s creed, too.
Five years later: December 8, 1941
Clifford “Windy” Wise opened the door of the Dixie Café and strolled confidently to the soda counter. Lunch was over, and the restaurant was closed to customers. But the bagmen for the current three-term sheriff Paul Cantrell’s political machine were no ordinary customers. The rules—be they store hours, or the county’s sundry prohibitions on liquor, gambling, and prostitution—did not apply to them.
“You fellas are like clockwork, ain’t ya,” said the café’s skinny, gray-haired owner, pulling a bottle of Jack Daniel’s from under the counter and pouring Wise a shot. “Here we are, under attack from the Japs. Whole country is signing up to fight. And here you are, collecting Cantrell’s kickback.”
Wise drank the shot of whiskey in a single gulp. Without looking up, he tapped his finger next to the empty glass. It was filled, and then gulped down again.
“Let me ask you a question,” Wise said, finally deigning to look up at the restaurant owner. “It’s about that back room. Behind that closed door. Now, I’m not sayin’ there’s ever any drinkin’ back there. I’m not sayin’ there’s ever any whorin’ back there. And I’m not sayin’ there’s ever been a single one-armed bandit back there. But supposin’ there was.” He tapped the bar, and the shot glass was refilled. “My question is: Are you plannin’ to put an end to it, just because there’s a war on?”
The café owner said nothing. He simply reached for the floor and pulled up a small satchel of cash.
Wise took another drink.
“I didn’t think so,” the deputy sheriff said, grabbing the satchel and turning to leave. “See you next month.”
Tarawa, Central Pacific
November 20, 1943
Bill White was floating in the ocean, a hundred yards from shore. He wasn’t dead, but he was pretending to be. All around him were angry splashes of bullets from Japanese machine guns, along with hundreds of American Marines, bleeding and lifeless, bumping into him. The explosions of artillery launched from the shore punctuated the relentless pounding of the machine guns. Strangely absent was the barking of orders heard at the Marines’ prior amphibious landings, where Americans had faced no serious opposition.
After what seemed like an eternity, Bill finally floated his way to within a few yards of the shoreline. He sprang out of the water and raced for the four-foot seawall that separated land from water. Beyond it were the Japanese snipers and pillboxes, the low concrete structures that protected the Japanese machine gunners responsible for the carnage that extended several hundred yards into the sea. So long as Bill stayed crouched behind the wall, he was safe—at least for the moment.
Bill scanned up and down the shoreline. He expected to find at least a few of his fellow Marines alive. He didn’t.
My God, he thought, there ain’t none of them gonna get in here. I’m all alone.
Bill had been in tough scrapes before. One night, after a shell from a Japanese destroyer had knocked him out of his small Higgins boat, a rescue ship had to be called to save him from the sharks that had already started to prey on his comrades. He had also managed to survive six months of hell on Guadalcanal. But never before had things looked so desperate.
Finally, through the smoke and bullets, he saw a figure dashing out of the ocean. Another Marine, who had also survived by pretending to be dead, was running through waist-deep water, his back bent forward and his hands covering his head. And he was not the only one. Bill watched more Marines emerge until an even dozen had made it to the protection of the seawall.
By this time, Bill was furious at the Japanese. “We can stay here and die,” he shouted above the din of gunfire to the dozen Marines crouched behind the wall with him, “or we can move out and die. But let’s move out and take these damn sons of bitches with us!”
Without waiting for a response, Bill jumped up on the seawall. The others weren’t sure why this crazy squad leader with a strong country accent had chosen to expose himself on a spot that was, at that moment, the most dangerous place in the most deadly war in the history of human conflict. Bill wasn’t sure, either. But when he jumped back down—just moments before machine-gun fire laced his section of the wall—he had a plan.
“Start shooting them trees and knock some of them snipers out of them trees up there.” No one moved. The stunned Marines just stared at him as though he were insane.
“Start throwing grenades at these pillboxes in front of us here.” Again, no reaction.
“Listen, if we don’t knock these pillboxes out then no other troops gonna be able to get in here to help us!”
Bill pulled the pin from his grenade and heaved it toward the closest pillbox. Then he crouched behind the wall—not on top of it this time, as there were some limits to his madness—and fired at the pillbox directly in front of them. Others followed his lead and the first fortification was soon destroyed. The dozen Marines then leapt over the wall and knocked out two more.
When the third pillbox was cleared of enemy gunners, Bill looked back to the sea. It was chaotic, and the newly arriving Americans were still taking heavy casualties, but something about the scene had changed. Bill saw Marines running down the front ramps of Alligator boats and splashing through the football-field length of ocean that separated them from the beach. There were hundreds of them, hundreds of American boys who would have been dead if those pillboxes had still been in place.
Athens
November 16, 1945
As the bus climbed over mountain roads, it passed signs saying “Jesus Is Coming Soon!” and “Prepare to Meet God!” But when it stopped that evening in Athens, it wasn’t God standing there to meet the passengers. It was Windy Wise and three of his fellow deputy sheriffs.
Friday nights were big for the Cantrell machine. Buses coming through town were packed, and every tourist was a ripe target for arrest in this dry county. If they had a bottle of beer on them, and sometimes even when they didn’t, they were arrestable. It made no difference in Athens. The county paid the sheriff “expenses” for each day that someone was held in jail. Whereas weekend arrests should normally have topped out at about fifteen, arrests in recent years had averaged 115. Over the last decade, Paul Cantrell’s fee grabbers had collected about $300,000 in county expenses, much of it from returning GIs, who were frequent targets of the unfair arrests. Cantrell himself was now a state senator, but the official salary of his crony, sheriff Pat Mansfield, by contrast, was $5,000 per year.
Most of the passengers, many bound for Atlanta, were asleep when their bus stopped in Athens. But not Bill White. The twenty-two-year-old was much too excited to sleep. He had trained in California, fought in the Pacific, and been honorably discharged in South Carolina. But now he was coming home.
As soon as Bill’s bus pulled into the station, Windy Wise bounded up the steps, followed by three other deputies.
“You’re under arrest,” he said. “All you folks is under arrest.”
“Under arrest?” asked a half-awake passenger. “What for?”
“Drunkenness!” shot back Wise. “Don’t worry. A night in jail won’t do you no harm. And you can just pay a lil’ fine in the mornin’.”
“But,” Wise added, turning to the tourist with the gumption to ask the reason for his arrest, “if I hear any more lip outta you, I’ll give you the biggest beatin’ you ever seen. And then I’ll add resistin’ arrest and obstruction and the fine won’t be so lil’—”
“Bullshit!” shouted a young GI, standing up in the back the bus.
The four deputies marched toward the soldier, their hands on their metal batons and their eyes on the boy with the big mouth.
Without the weapons, and without the three extra deputies, a brawl between Windy Wise and this GI might have been a pretty fair fight. Both were big men, not so much in their height as in their build. Both were good athletes. And both had been in a lot of brawls.
But Windy Wise was not without his police baton or his three allies. And the melee that ensued was not a fair fight at all.
March 24, 1946
“Hello?” said Bill, as he picked up the phone in his parents’ kitchen.
“Bill, it’s Jim Buttram. How you doing?”
“Fine, I s’pose,” Bill replied, curious about the local grocer’s reason for calling. “Are you lookin’ for my pa?”
“No, Bill. Looking for you. Some of the GIs are pretty fed up with Paul Cantrell and his gang. They’ve been out of control for a while, but ever since GIs started coming home, Mansfield and his deputies have really had a field day arresting us and beating us for no reason. They’ve even shot a couple boys. So when I heard about your run-in with Windy Wise back in the fall, I thought you might be with us.”
“Hell, yes,” said Bill, recalling the pain he felt from the pounding of Windy Wise’s baton. “But there ain’t nothin’ you or me or no one can do about it.”