John Lisle

And he had been a businessman who had done imports and exports in Tokyo.

So he knew Japanese culture.

He knew the language.

He knew the religious beliefs.

The OSS wanted to exploit that by trying to find a way we can –

We can demoralize the Japanese.

You know a lot about the Japanese psyche, the idea was, Ed Salinger.

So figure out a way we can demoralize the Japanese and make them basically give up this war because, you know, they're dug in.

They're not giving up.

We need to find a way that we can basically use psychological warfare on them.

So his idea is that in the Shinto religion, there are these kind of mystical figures called kitsune.

And in many cases, they take the form of like a fox, a glowing fox.

And oftentimes they represent portents of doom.

So, you know, if you see one of these kitsune, it's an indication that something bad is about to happen.

And so Salinger knew, what if we can artificially create kitsune, spread them around Japan, then all these Japanese soldiers are going to see them and think, oh, that's a portent of doom.

Surely it means we're going to lose the war.

Therefore, we might as well lay down our arms right now.

And so Salinger, initially his idea is we're going to create whistles that can make fox sounds, and we're going to distribute them across Japan to our agents there, and they can blow these whistles like anyone would recognize a fox sound.

He had the idea that we're going to create...

artificial fox odors and spread it around places, and people are going to think that it's the kitsune foxes that are walking around.