Notes of Deception

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.

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Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.