FOR THE AMERICAN G.I.S of World War II, Tokyo Rose was the seductive voice of Imperial Japan’s propaganda radio. For the provocateurs at TripmasterMonkey, she’s the woman who inspired a rockin’ T-shirt. Either way, Tokyo Rose’s legacy lives on. The actual Tokyo Rose however…not so much.

Iva Toguri D’Aquino died on Sept. 26 at age 90 of natural causes in Chicago, where she had been running her family’s imports store since she was released from prison in 1956 after serving six years for treason. She was later pardoned by President Gerald Ford.

D’Aquino was born in Los Angeles, raised a Methodist and registered as a Republican. We’re guessing that she’s the very first former Girl Scout convicted of treason. In 1941, she was visting relatives in Japan when Pearl Harbor broke out and she suddenly found herself in enemy territory knowing only a few words of Japanese.

After refusing to renounce her U.S. citizenship, she was compelled to work for Japanese radio, doing broadcasts meant to demoralize American troops, under the stage name Orphan Ann. (The name “Tokyo Rose” was given to her and a number of disc jockeys like her by U.S. troops; she was the only American citizen among the group.)

D’Aquino later insisted that she tried to work in double meanings into her news summaries and calls for American servicemen to lay down their arms and return to their families. Paid about $7 a month, she apparently spent some of this money feeding Allied prisoners of war.

In 1949, despite the testimony of American and Australian POWs on her behalf, D’Aquino became the seventh person in U.S. history convicted of treason. The charge: “[On] a day during October, 1944, the exact date being to the Grand Jurors unknown, said defendant, at Tokyo, Japan, in a broadcasting studio of the Broadcasting Corporation of Japan, did speak into a microphone concerning the loss of ships.” After the facts of her case (and prosecutorial misconduct) became known in the mid-1970s, she was pardoned by President Ford.

In recent years, Hollywood veteran and internment camp survivor George Takei has expressed interest in making a biopic about Iva Toguri D’Aquino, portraying her not as a traitor to her country but as a patriot. Did we mention that she was born on July 4? •