Tokyo Rose dies in Chicago

• Tweet

CHICAGO, Sept. 27 (UPI) -- Iva Toguri D'Aquino, convicted of being Tokyo Rose and later pardoned, has reportedly died in Chicago at age 90.

D'Aquino was one of several women who broadcast as Tokyo Rose over Radio Tokyo during World War II. D'Aquino, who was born in Southern California, was in Japan visiting relatives when the war broke out and took a job as a disc jockey for Radio Tokyo. She was the only U.S. citizen known to have participated in the broadcasts.

"I didn't think I was doing anything disloyal to America," she told a United Press Interviewer at the time.

D'Aquino served six years of a 10-year sentence for her conviction. She was pardoned in 1977 by President Gerald Ford.

"It is hard to believe," D'Aquino said of Ford's action, The New York Times reported. "But I have always maintained my innocence -- this pardon is a measure of vindication."

D'Aquino was born Iva Ikuko Toguri July 4, 1916, in Los Angeles and graduated from UCLA in 1940.

After she got out of prison, she ran a family grocery store and gift shop in Chicago.