Journalist calls for Tokyo Rose's full exoneration on Wilkow!

The journalist who wrote the exposés responsible for helping Iva Toguri (aka Tokyo Rose) gain her pardon from President Gerald Ford some 28 years after being convicted of treason is now calling for her full exoneration.

Ronald Yates, a former Chicago-based journalist who was recently part of a Blaze Books exclusive series on the scapegoating and subsequent destruction of the now-deceased Iva Toguri -- a Japanese-American citizen -- at the hands of her own government called for full exoneration on a recent episode of TheBlaze's Wilkow! program.

Ronald Yates discussing Tokyo Rose on the Wilkow! program on 29 January 2014. (Source: BlazeTV screengrab)

Toguri, the focus of chapter 9 of Glenn Beck's "Miracles and Massacres," was accused of treason for her broadcasts as "Tokyo Rose" during World War II, which supposedly demoralized American troops in the Pacific theater. In 1949 she was convicted of treason for her actions, largely as a result of false testimony delivered by two Japanese men who apparently were pressured by the U.S. government to deliver.

Yates exposed the tragic story behind how Iva Toguri found herself stuck in Japan during the war, remained a loyal American in the face of abusive Japanese forces and still had her life ruined due to an organized campaign by Harry Truman and his Attorney General Tom C. Clark during the 1948 election year in order to assuage critics who claimed that he was soft on traitors.

While Ronald Yates is grateful that President Ford pardoned Toguri in 1977, he hopes that recent renewed interest in Toguri's plight, including a movie currently in the works with Frank Darabont, director of movies such as "The Shawshank Redemption" and "The Green Mile" and most recently the television series "Mob City" and "The Walking Dead" will help generate more support to fully right in the eyes of the law a great wrong committed against a woman he feels should be remember as a patriot.

Check out the clip of Yates on Wilkow! in which he calls for Iva Toguri's full exoneration below: [mlbvideo content_id="31345533"]

And if you missed our full season, check out the below:

• Part I: How An Ambitious Young Chicago Journalist Discovered the Truth About the Patriot Destroyed By Our Government
• Part II: Iva Toguri’s Pardon
• Part III: Finding Iva Toguri Two Decades Later
• Part IV: ‘Her Entire Life Was Just Destroyed By This Monolithic Thing Called Government‘