Notes of Deception: How a Quartet of American Musicians Outwitted the KGB – The Untold Russian History of a Daring Cold War Mission poster

Notes of Deception: How a Quartet of American Musicians Outwitted the KGB – The Untold Russian History of a Daring Cold War Mission

By Goldberg, Merryl

First published 2026

How a Quartet of American Musicians Outwitted the KGB – The Untold History of a Daring Cold War Spy Mission In 1985, while the United States engaged in a battle of nuclear brinkmanship, four Americans landed in Moscow on a mission to smuggle secret information in and out using music as their cipher. Under the watchful eye of the KGB, the group faced countless challenges and risks—because they weren’t trained in espionage. In fact, they were musicians with the New England-based Yiddish-music focused Klezmer Conservatory Band (KCB). Now, the quartet’s saxophonist, Merryl Goldberg, together with Vince Houghton, the Director of the National Security Agency’s National Cryptologic Museum, tell the harrowing story of how Goldberg devised an ingenious plan to encode the intelligence within the group’s sheet music. FEATURED ON: People.com The Mark Thompson Show Now I’ve Heard Everything A Way with Words Includes 16 pages of archival photos

Published
25 Aug 2026
Pages
304
Publisher
Hanover Square Press
Edition
Hardcover
Elsewhere
Open Library
  • Adventure
  • War

How members shelved it

Nobody has logged this yet.