Glenn Beck Uses Tokyo Rose's Mic, Unused Since 1940s

Beck Holds the Mic

PREMIERE NETWORKS and THEBLAZE host GLENN BECK bought the microphone used by WORLD WAR II propaganda broadcaster IVA TOGURI -- the most well-known of the "TOKYO ROSES" -- last week and used it this morning (9/26), the first time the mic had been used in 70 years.

“TOKYO ROSE is a woman that is synonymous with the word ‘traitor.’ TOKYO ROSE was an American citizen. She was probably the most listened‑to disc jockey in the history of the world,” said BECK. “Her name is IVA TOGURI. She was born here in the U.S. And then she went over to JAPAN. And then the war happened. And she wanted to come back to the U.S. but couldn’t.” 

BECK added that TOGURI, actually one of as many as five "TOKYO ROSES" (the name was generic; she was the best known, broadcasting as "ORPHAN ANN" on "THE ZERO HOUR"), "refused" to read the most demoralizing messages and visited soldiers in prison camps. eventually bringing them medicine and supplies.

TOGURI returned to the U.S. after the war and was imprisoned in 1949 after a campaign by radio and newspaper gossip columnist WALTER WINCHELL and alleged perjury by witnesses at her trial; she served six years of a 10-year sentence.  President GERALD FORD pardoned TOGURI in 1977 and she died in 2006.

The microphone, unused since the 1940s, was refurbished with new wires but the rest was original and untested before the broadcast.  BECK, using the historic mic, said that TOGURI "told the troops where the bombers were going to come so they could prepare. She hid all of her information. She disguised the words that she was using to hide them from TOKYO, not from the Americans ... AMERICA, tell the truth. Tell the truth, even if it means in the end it hurts you. AMERICA, don’t believe everything that your country and your government tells you. Because while many times, most times it’s true; in many critical times it’s an out‑and‑out lie. And it’s not an American problem. It is a government problem. It is a human problem ... If this microphone could speak, it would tell you this: Your country told you lies.

"IVA TOGURI was not a traitor. She was wrongly tried and wrongly imprisoned, and real justice for her is now beyond our grasp. But if this microphone could speak all that it had seen or heard, my guess is it would say, 'Listen to the voices of the past. Listen to the voices of the past that now cry out. You are the last bastion of freedom in the world. You are smart enough. You as an individual are capable. But if you don’t do it, no one else will. Question the things that everyone says. Question the things that are even coming now out of this microphone, just as people questioned it 70 years ago. Find the truth because it depends on you. It’s calling to you. Don’t follow the crowd. Don’t do the easy thing. Do the right thing. Because if you still ‑‑ if you still want to believe that you should be called an American, you do the right thing because everything else is beneath you.'"

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