Treason on the Airwaves: Three Allied Broadcasters on Axis Radio During World War II

Treason on the Airwaves traces the journeys of three World War II radio broadcasters whose wartime choices became treason in Britain, Australia, and the United States.

John Amery was a virulent anti-Semite and member of a highly respected British family who joined Hitler’s propagandists in Berlin and was executed for treason after the war. Charles Cousens, a popular radio personality at home in Australia, was a soldier in Japanese captivity who was put to work on Radio Tokyo and later tried as a traitor. Iva Toguri, better known as “Tokyo Rose,” was an American student visiting relatives in Japan when war broke out. She broadcast her English-language show on Radio Tokyo out of necessity rather than conviction. The United States jailed Toguri for treason.

These three powerful stories provide an overview of the way in which the three nations dealt with suspected collaborators after the war. Judidth Keene also examines the significance of radio propaganda during World War II and the techniques the Germans and the Japanese used to engage listeners. All three accounts provoke questions about the nature of justice—and the justice of retribution.

Judith Keene, an associate professor of history and the associate dean of postgraduate research in the faculty of arts at the University of Sydney, is the author of Fighting for Franco: International Volunteers in Nationalist Spain during the Spanish Civil War, 1936–39. Istvan Deak, Seth Low Professor Emeritus at Columbia University, is the author of numerous books, including Essays on Hitler’s Europe (Nebraska 2001).