“I certainly hope the military”: Dobbs, 268.
“The opinion was not good literature”: Dobbs, 269.
“an obsessive, compulsive, neurotic personality type”: Dobbs, 270–71.
Notes on specific scenes and characters:
In the Supreme Court courtroom scene, we quote from a memo that Frankfurter wrote to his colleagues. As currently written, it’s clear that Frankfurter is not saying the quote live during the oral argument, but it is ambiguous in our story when Frankfurter actually wrote it. According to the record, he actually wrote it a few months later, as the Court was trying to write the opinion.
Peter Burger actually did send Hoover a Christmas card annually after his release. The scene in December 1971 where Hoover is going through Christmas cards is, however, imagined.
The epilogue tells the story of Yasir Hamdi. We have told the story as if Hamdi and his family were credible sources, although, of course, they had an incentive to whitewash his actions in Afghanistan.
In addition, the Hamdi decision is a complicated and controversial decision, and any interpretation of it is likely to generate disagreement. There is ongoing debate about what the decision means and we used the case merely to prove the point that the saboteurs’ decision continues to influence important cases.
Chapter 9: Who Is Tokyo Rose?
Most of the facts used to create this story came from the following sources:
Close, Frederick P. Tokyo Rose/An American Patriot: A Dual Biography. Scarecrow Press, 2009.
Duus, Masayo. Tokyo Rose: Orphan of the Pacific. Kodansha America, 1979.
Gunn, Rex B. They Called Her Tokyo Rose. Expanded 2nd ed. Brent Bateman, 2008.
Howe, Russell Warren. The Hunt for “Tokyo Rose.” Madison Books, 1989.
Kawashima, Yasuhide. The Tokyo Rose Case: Treason on Trial. University Press of Kansas, 2013.
“ ‘Tokyo Rose’ Vindicated Before Her Death.” Human Events, September 27, 2006. http://www.humanevents.com/2006/09/27/tokyo-rose-vindicated-before-her-death/.
Most of the dialogue in this chapter was imagined, but the following quotations were taken in whole or in part from the historical record:
“We will show that in one broadcast after the Battle of Leyte Gulf”: Gunn, 189.
“The men often tune in on Radio Tokyo to hear the cultured, accentless English”: Close, 199.
“ ‘homesicky’ . . . This is an Imperial Order . . . The only women we can trust, Iva”: Gunn, 81.
“This is crazy! I can’t do this! I’m no good at it”: Kawashima, 32.
“Until we’ve defeated Japan”: Howe, 26.
“Who is Tokyo Rose? Tokyo Rose delivers”: Close, 199–200.
“Greetings, everybody!”: Gunn, 115.
“No one knows for sure who Tokyo Rose really is”: Close, 200.
“Want to make a deal?”: Kawashima, 38.
“You are Tokyo Rose? . . . I am just one of them”: Duus, 21.
“You worked at Radio Tokyo . . . You announced”: Duus, 21–22.
“she will do”: Duus, 22.
“The one and original Tokyo Rose”: Duus, 22.
“TRAITOR’S PAY: TOKYO ROSE GOT 100 YEN A MONTH . . . $6.60 . . . In an exclusive interview with this correspondent”: Duus, 25.
“Good evening, Mr. and Mrs. America, and all the ships at sea!”: Duus, 111.
“Emperor-lovers and friends of the Zaibatsu”: Duus, 117.
“There is insufficient evidence to make out a prima facie case”: Gunn, 168.
“The government witnesses, almost to a man”: Gunn, 169.
“The government’s evidence likewise will show”: Gunn, 169.
“Any other Japanese bring you food besides”: Gunn, 219.
“Did you do anything whatsoever . . . Never”: Duus, 208.
“Has the jury arrived at a verdict? . . . Guilty”: Kawashima, 1.
“Throughout an ordeal that has lasted decades, Iva Toguri”: “Tokyo Rose Vindicated Before Her Death,” Human Events, September 26, 2006, http://www.humanevents.com/2006/09/27/tokyo-rose-vindicated-before-her-death/.
“I’m proud of you, girl. You didn’t change your stripes”: Duus, 130.
Notes on specific scenes and characters:
Some details in the July 4, 1946, scene are imagined, including the exact date. What’s known is that around that time a group of peeping-tom congressmen watched her get out of the shower in prison.
One year before Iva Toguri’s trial, Thomas DeWolfe wrote a memo in which he said that the charges against her should not be brought and could not be proven. However, we do not know for certain that he believed her to be innocent at the time of the trial.
The description of the government’s case against Iva is told from Iva’s point of view. Undoubtedly, if told from the government’s point of view, the case against her would appear stronger. In addition, we say that Harry Brundidge suborned perjury from Mitsushio and Oki. Brundidge did actually go to Japan and suborn perjury from some potential witnesses, but we don’t know whether Mitsushio’s and Oki’s perjury was directly suborned by Brundidge or by someone else.
Chapter 10: The Battle of Athens: Repeated Petitions, Repeated Injuries
Most of the facts used to create this story came from the following sources:
“The Battle of Athens: 2 August 1946.” http://www.constitution.org/mil/tn/batathen.htm.
“The Battle of Athens, Tennessee.” Guns and Ammo (October 1995): 50–51. http://jpfo.org/filegen-a-m/athens.htm.
Byrum, C. Stephen. The Battle of Athens, Tennessee. Tapestry Press, 1996.
Gibson, Kelly. “Ex-GIs Battle for the Ballot.” VFW Magazine, August 2012.
Martin, Ralph G. The GI War, 1941–1945. Little, Brown, 1967.
Pierce, Charles P. “The Battle of Athens Revisited.” Esquire, December 18, 2012. http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/larry-pratt-gun-owners-action-league-on-battle-of-athens-121812.
Seiber, Lones. “The Battle of Athens.” American Heritage, February/March 1985.
“Tennessee: Battle of the Ballots.” Time, August 12, 1946.
University of Tennessee Knoxville, An Interview with Bill White for the Veteran’s Oral History Project, 2000. Note: Bill White’s oral history was given fifty-four years after the events and some of his recollections are inconsistent with the recollections of others who were present. For these reasons, we do not consider White’s oral history to be entirely reliable, and we consequently were not bound by it.
White, Theodore H. “The Battle of Athens, Tennessee.” Harper’s Monthly (January 1947): 54–60.
Most of the dialogue in this chapter was imagined, but the following quotations were taken in whole or in part from the historical record:
“My God, there ain’t none of them gonna get in here”: Bill White Oral History, 12.
“Jesus is Coming Soon!” and “Prepare to Meet God!”: White, “The Battle of Athens, Tennessee.”
“Got some big huntin’ to do—some big huntin”: Byrum, 121.
“You can’t vote . . . You can’t vote here today!”: Byrum, 129.
“bravest of the brave . . . best of the best”: Bill White Oral History, 39.
“That government, being instituted for the common benefit”: Martin, 490.
“We’re going to have to get some charges up there on the building”: Bill White Oral History, 22.
Notes on specific scenes and characters:
The August 3, 1936, scene is imagined, as are many of the details. We don’t know much about what Bill White’s parents did for a living, but we do know that Bill grew up relatively poor (the part about not having a lot of shoes is from his oral history). We also know he liked westerns, though we don’t know specifically whether he listened to the Lone Ranger.
The December 8, 1941, scene is imagined, though it is based on known facts about the characters present, such as Windy Wise.
The November 16, 1945, scene is imagined but was inspired by the fact that many GIs were beaten up, arreste
d, and fined. The record is not clear about specific names.
The March 24, 1946, scene is imagined, though it was inspired by the fact that there was a secret meeting before this date that Bill White was not at.
The July 3, 1946, scene is imagined. There were threatening phone calls made, but it’s unclear whether Bill White received one.
Much of the July 4, 1946, scene is imagined. There was a rally that day, but we don’t know whether or not Bill White spoke at it. White’s speech does, however, use some of the epithets that were used by others throughout the campaign to criticize Cantrell’s machine, like “Gestapo thugs.”
In the July 25, 1946, scene, the wording of the letter is imagined. The record merely says there was a letter requesting FBI observers be present on election day.
The conversation in the August 1, 8:20 A.M. scene between Bill White and the delivery man is imagined, though the record is clear that the delivery man had been making a lot of deliveries in recent days as people in the county stocked up on ammo. White’s actions in this scene are also imagined.
In the August 1, 3:00 P.M., scene, several reports say that Wise actually used the n-word (we have him saying “Boy.”)
The dialogue in the August 1, 7:00 P.M., scene is imagined. Some of it was said by White earlier in the day, and the scene imagines him saying it again to the crowd here. It is not clear that White was at this specific gathering.
Many of the details in the August 1, 9:00 P.M., scene are imagined or composited based on several differing accounts.
The August 2, 1:15 A.M., scene, in which Wise and Cantrell debate whether help from the governor is coming, is imagined.
Many of the details and the dialogue in the 2:45 A.M. scene are imagined. There are contradictory versions of exactly what happened with the dynamite.
The August 2, 5:45 A.M., scene is imagined, though the major facts relayed in it are true.
As a general matter, the record of these events in Athens is fairly sparse. The few accounts that do exist often contradict other accounts. The result is that we took some license when telling this story—so long as that license did not contradict a fact we knew to be true.
Chapter 11: The My Lai Massacre: A Light in the Darkness
Most of the facts used to create this story came from the following sources:
“Biography: Selected Men Involved with My Lai.” PBS.org. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/biography/mylai-biographies/.
Bock, Paula. “The Choices Made: Lessons from My Lai on Drawing the Line.” Pacific Northwest, 2002. http://seattletimes.com/pacificnw/2002/0310/cover.html.
Mackey, Robert. “An Apology for My Lai, Four Decades Later.” New York Times, August 24, 2009. http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/24/an-apology-for-my-lai-four-decades-later/?_r=0.
“Nov 12, 1969: Seymour Hersh Breaks My Lai Story.” History.com. http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/seymour-hersh-breaks-my-lai-story.
“Timeline: Charlie Company and the Massacre at My Lai.” PBS.org. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/timeline/mylai-massacre/.
“Transcript: Complete Program Transcript: My Lai.” Pbs.org. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/transcript/mylai-transcript/.
Vietnam Magazine. “Interview—Larry Colburn: Why My Lai, Hugh Thompson Matter.” Historynet.com. February 7, 2011. http://www.historynet.com/interview-larry-colburn-why-my-lai-hugh-thompson-matter.htm.
Note: Several key elements of this chapter were imagined in order to tell the My Lai story properly. Tuttle-Woods convalescent home, Morgan Campbell (the old man recounting the events at My Lai), Everly Davison (the security guard), and Julia Geller (the reporter who interviews Campbell about the massacre), are all fictional or composited based on real places or people.
Chapter 12: The Missing 9/11 Terrorist: The Power of Everyday Heroes
Most of the facts used to create this story came from the following sources:
Glick, Lyz, and Dan Zegart. Your Father’s Voice: Reprint ed. St. Martin’s Griffin, 2005.
Interrogation Log, Detainee 063, Time, March 3, 2006.
Longman, Jere. Among the Heroes: United Flight 93 and the Passengers and Crew Who Fought Back: HarperCollins E-Books, January 2010.
Melendez-Perez, Jose. Testimony before National Commission of Terrorist Attacks Upon the People of the United States, January 26, 2004. http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/911/hearings/hearing7/witness_melendez.htm.
“Mohammed al Qahtani.” Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammed_al-Qahtani.
Pauley, Jane. “Lyz Glick’s Courage.” NBC News, August 20, 2002.
Rumsfeld, Donald. Known and Unknown: A Memoir. Sentinel, 2011.
Smerconish, Michael. Instinct: The Man Who Stopped the 20th Hijacker: Lyons Press, 2009.
“Ziad Jarrah.” Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ziad_Jarrah.
Notes on specific scenes and characters:
The conversation that Melendez-Perez has with Qahtani is taken from Melendez-Perez’s testimony: http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/911/hearings/hearing7/witness_melendez.htm.
The May 11, 2001, scene is imagined. While we know that Qahtani visited the Taliban front lines north of Kabul, we do not know if he was ever in the Panjshir Valley or if Northern Alliance soldiers chased him.
Ziad Jarrah is not known to have been at Orlando International Airport but Mohammed Atta and “another accomplice” were there. Jarrah was living in Fort Lauderdale at the time and was a known associate of Atta and was the leader of the cell Qahtani was assigned to.
The conversations between Khalid Sheik Mohammed and Qahtani are known to have occurred, but we obviously don’t know precisely what was said.
Sergeant Romeo and Lisa Smith are fictional characters. While Qahtani was interrogated at Guantanamo Bay, we do not know who his interrogators were. During these interrogations, Qahtani did provide Kuwaiti’s name (the courier).
The scene with CIA agent Ron intercepting Kuwaiti’s phone call is real, but the record on it is classified so everything has been sterilized, including names.
Our Fading History
I am growing increasingly fearful that our history is being lost to time.
It’s actually kind of ironic that in this age of Google and the Internet and hard drives capable of holding a century’s worth of information we are still losing sight of our past—but it’s happening.
And it’s getting worse.
As time goes by and new generations come through our public schools, history will continue to fade. It just doesn’t seem to be a priority anymore. Most schools teach kids only to memorize dates and places and names. In 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue. We no longer take the time to understand the why or how of anything because of the exaggerated importance placed on the where and when.
That is one reason why I chose to write this book in a narrative style. I want people to read these stories and feel as if they were there beside the characters. I don’t want people to just read about Tokyo Rose in a textbook, I want them to understand who she really was and why she made the decisions she did. Only once you have that context can you judge whether history has treated her properly.
The same goes for most of the other people found in the stories in this book. Even if you’ve heard of the Battle of Wounded Knee, for example, you may not have really understood the roles that people like General Miles and Colonel Whitside played. And what about Thomas Edison? Are all sides of his complex life talked about or do most people only know him as a gentle genius inventor?
Americans weren’t always so ill educated. We used to know our past. We used to understand the Constitution and unapologetically teach our children that it was the greatest and most enlightened system of government ever created.
In 1828, Arthur J. Stansbury, a Presbyterian minister from New York, wrote the “Elementary Catechism on the Constitution of the United States.” This work consists of 322 questions and answers on the Constitution and the functi
oning of our federal government. It was written with the explicit intention of being a concise and simple guide for use in public schools.
I found this catechism so fascinating and eye-opening that I wanted to include a small excerpt of it here. I think it’s a sad statement on our priorities as a nation that the answers found in it demonstrate a far greater understanding of the Constitution and history than the vast majority of adult Americans have—let alone our children.
Preface
That a people living under a free government which they have themselves originated should be well acquainted with the instrument which contains it, needs not to be proved. Were the system, indeed, very cumbrous and extensive, running into minute detail, and hard to be retained in the memory, even this would be no good reason why pains should not be taken to understand and to imprint it upon the mind but when its principles are simple, its features plain and obvious, and its brevity surpassing all example, it is certainly a most reprehensible negligence to remain in ignorance of it.—Yet how small a portion of the citizens of this Republic have even a tolerable acquaintance with their own Constitution? It has appeared to the author of the following sheets that this culpable want of acquaintance with what is of such deep interest to us all, is to be traced to the omission of an important part of what ought to be an American education, viz. the study of the civil institutions of our country.—We prize them, it is true, and are quite enough in the habit of boasting about them: would it not be well to teach their elements to those whose best inheritance they are?
The following work has been prepared with a view to such an experiment. It is written expressly for the use of boys, and it has been the aim and effort of the writer to bring down the subject completely to a level with their capacity to understand it. Whether he has succeeded the trial must show. He has purposely avoided all abstruse questions, and has confined himself to a simple, commonsense explanation of each article.
[…]
Q31. What was the change produced by the Revolution?
A. The different Colonies became each a free state, having power to govern itself in any way it should think proper.
Q32. Had not one state any power over the other?