John David Provoo

John David Provoo (1917–August 28 2001) was a sergeant in the United States Army. Before World War II, he studied in Japan, but returned to the United States when the war broke out; convicted of treason for his conduct during World War II but then later having his conviction overturned, he returned to Japan for further religious studies and was ordained as a Buddhist priest. He then moved to Hawaii, where he lived until his death.cite news|url=http://starbulletin.com/2001/10/27/news/story16.html|date=2001-10-27|accessdate=2008-02-06|last=Asato|first=Lisa|work=Honolulu Star-Bulletin|title=Treason trial shadowed ex-soldier’s life] [cite news|url=http://starbulletin.com/2001/10/04/news/obits.html|date=2001-10-04|accessdate=2008-02-06|title=Obituaries|work=Honolulu Star-Bulletin]

Childhood

Provoo was born in San Francisco, California in 1917. At age six, he suffered a skull fracture when he fell from the second-story porch outside of his home to the concrete surface of the courtyard below.cite news|title=Case of the Buddhist Sergeant|work=Time Magazine|date=1952-11-24|accessdate=2008-02-06|url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,817346-2,00.html] He began to practise Buddhism as a teenager, and became a strict adherent; his brother George recalled in an interview with the "Honolulu Star-Bulletin" how Provoo would stand at the kitchen sink saving ants from drowning, in accordance with the Buddhist principle of the sanctity of life. He also began studying the Japanese language around that time, with a Buddhist priest as his teacher. He went on to work in a federal bank in his hometown, and then in 1940 moved to Japan to study in a Buddhist monastery near Tokyo.

World War II

With the United States' entry into World War II, Provoo returned home and enlisted in the United States Army. He was sent to the Philippines, where he worked as a G-2 clerk at the Army Headquarters in Manila, and was briefly considered as a candidate for the Counter Intelligence Corps due to his Japanese language skills, but ultimately rejected due to his suspected homosexuality and the time he had spent in Japan.cite book|last=Sayer|first=Ian|coauthors=Douglas Botting|title=America's Secret Army: The Untold Story of the Counter Intelligence Corps|chapter=Richard Sakakida|publisher=Grafton Books|date=1989|id=ISBN 0246126906] He was captured in the Battle of Corregidor in 1942 and made a prisoner of war.cite news|url=http://aolsvc.timeforkids.kol.aol.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,807843,00.html|date=1955-10-31|accessdate=2008-02-06|title=Justice Denied|work=Time Magazine]

According to his fellow prisoners, Provoo used his fluent Japanese to rise to a position of power in the POW camp, abusing his fellow prisoners to gain privileges from the Japanese. Various accounts state that Provoo personally shot an Army captain named Burton C. Thomson, a veterinarian stationed on Corregidor, or reported him to Japanese troops who shot him themselves, though the exact details vary. One stated that Thomson had provoked Provoo by responded to Provoo's demand that he bring him some food with a comment to the effect that next time he saw Provoo he would kick him so hard that Provoo could taste his boot; another gave the reason as Thomson's refusal to move American prisoners out of hospital beds to make room for Japanese troops at Provoo's demand.cite book|title=P.O.W. in the Pacific: Memoirs of an American Doctor in World War II|first=William N.|last=Donovan|coauthors=Ann Devigne Donovan|publisher=Rowman and Littlefield|date=1998|id=ISBN 0842027254|pages=p. 56] One POW also claimed in his memoirs that Provoo was so hated by his fellow prisoners that one had tried to kill him by putting ground glass in his food, and that Provoo later threatened to kill a colonel surnamed Cooper. The diaries of Frank Fujita, one of the few Japanese American soldiers captured by the Japanese during World War II, placed Provoo on Taiwan and then at Camp Omori, a Tokyo Bay facility which housed prisoners making propaganda broadcasts for the Japanese. [cite book|title=Foo: A Japanese-American Prisoner of the Rising Sun|last=Fujita|first=Frank|coauthors=Stanley L. Falk, Robert Wear|pages=pp. 191-192|publisher=University of North Texas Pres|id=ISBN 0929398467|date=March 1993]

After the war, Provoo was arrested, but then released in 1946 after eight months of investigation which concluded that there was no evidence he had collaborated with the Japanese; he re-enlisted in the Army six weeks later.

Re-arrest and trial

Provoo was honorably discharged from the Army on 2 September, 1949 at Governors Island, New York; however, an hour after his release, the Federal Bureau of Investigation arrested him and charged him with treason.cite news|url=http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=FB0A17FC355A157B93C1A91782D85F4D8485F9|work=The New York Times|date=1949-09-03|accessdate=2008-02-06|last=Kennedy|first=Paul P.|title=FBI Seizes GI as a Traitor Upon His Release by Army|page=1] The story made the front page of "The New York Times" the following day. His trial, initially scheduled to begin in January 1950, was repeatedly delayed as the government sought to gather more witnesses as well as due to Provoo's own 1951 commitment to the Bellevue Hospital Center for psychiatric evaluation. [cite news|url=http://news.google.com/archivesearch/url?sa=t&ct=res&cd=4-0&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.newspaperarchive.com%2Fnewspapers1%2Fna0022%2F6781970%2F37249776.html&ei=atypR_rxJJzoqwP-uaGiCQ&usg=AFQjCNFU4MmcEH19vR06068_qULniQpNTw|work=Daily Independent Journal|date=1950-01-19|accessdate=2008-02-06|title=Provoo Case Delayed] [cite news|url=http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=FA0915FE3A5A1A7B93C6A9178AD85F458585F9|work=The New York Times|date=1951-01-04|accessdate=2008-02-06|title=Provoo Treason Trial Delayed] [cite news|url=http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F60D11F93855177B93CBA8178DD85F458585F9|work=The New York Times|title=Treason Trial Adjourned|date=1951-06-19|accessdate=2008-02-06] [cite news|url=http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F20F12F63855177B93C2AA1783D85F458585F9|title=Provoo Committed to Bellevue|work=The New York Times|date=1951-08-30|accessdate=2008-02-06] His trial finally began in 1952. The defense's star witness was General Jonathan Wainright, called in the trial's seventh week; by his own testimony, he had never met Provoo nor heard any reports about him during the war. The general instead spoke of his experiences in Japanese POW camps. Lawyers had to shout their questions at him, as his exposure to loud shell bursts during the war had left him with severe hearing impairment. [cite news|url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,889561,00.html|date=1952-12-22|accessdate=2008-02-06|work=Time Magazine|title=People: Names make news. Last week these names made news.]

After a fifteen-week trial, the jury found Provoo guilty on charges of offering his services to the Japanese army, helping to cause the execution of a fellow prisoner, and making two propaganda broadcasts on behalf of the Japanese. He was the eighth U.S. citizen convicted of treason after World War II, and only the second whose conviction related to actions during his imprisonment in a POW camp. [cite news|title=Guilty of Treason|date=1953-02-23|accessdate=2008-02-06|work=Time Magazine|url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,936335,00.html] His sentence was announced the following week; the court spared him the death penalty on grounds of his emotional instability, instead giving him life imprisonment. [cite news|url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,822632,00.html|date=1953-03-02|accessdate=2008-02-06|title=Life for a Traitor|work=Time Magazine] In total, the costs of Provoo's trial were estimated at $1 million.cite news|work=Time Magazine|title=Million-Dollar Loss|date=1954-09-06|accessdate=2008-02-06|url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,820068,00.html?iid=chix-sphere]

In August 1954, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit overturned his conviction on the grounds that he should have been tried in Maryland and that the cross-examination about his alleged homosexuality inappropriately prejudiced the jury. By that time, the sixty-nine witnesses called to the stand at his trial had been scattered all over the country; General Wainright had even died. As a result, the Department of Justice doubted that Provoo could be retried. He was indicted again by the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in Baltimore, Maryland, with Judge Roszel C. Thomsen presiding. However, Thomsen threw out the case in March 1955, stating that Provoo's right to a speedy trial under the U.S. Constitution's 6th Amendment had been abrogated. The prosecution appealed the case to the Supreme Court, which on October 17, 1955 unanimously upheld the lower court's dismissal. [cite book|title=Defendant's Rights Today|last=Fellman|first=David|publisher=University of Wisconsin Press|id=ISBN 0299072045|date=1978|pages=pp. 113-114]

Post-trial

Provoo found it difficult to get over his treason trial; he described it as being like "towing a shipwreck" behind him. He settled in Baltimore, Maryland, but had trouble holding down a job due to the publicity which had surrounded his trial; eventually, his wife divorced him. [cite book|title=Rough News, Daring Views|last=Kepner|first=Jim|pages=p. 126|date=1997|publisher=Haworth Press|id=ISBN 0789001403] Later, he moved to Lincoln, Nebraska, where he was found guilty on a sodomy charge in 1958 and sent to prison for three years. [cite news|url=http://news.google.com/archivesearch/url?sa=t&ct=res&cd=9-0&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.newspaperarchive.com%2Fnewspapers1%2Fna0022%2F2900762%2F15564643.html&ei=CeCpR8bnOp_gqwO6143RBA&usg=AFQjCNFAOTsRD7KtZBmxHao0Vg5KdUnSGw|date=1958-08-29|title=Sodomy charges net 3-year term|work=Lincoln Evening Journal|accessdate=2008-02-06] He went to Japan to study Nichiren Buddhism after his release, but returned to the United States to take up a post as a Buddhist teacher in Nuuanu, Hawaii. He later led a sect on Oahu and the Big Island, and also started up the non-profit Buddhist School of America. He died in the Hilo Medical Center on August 28, 2001; his ashes were buried at the Hawaii Veteran's Cemetery No. 2.

References