Notes of Decep­tion: How a Quar­tet of Amer­i­can Musi­cians Out­wit­ted the KGB chron­i­cles the incred­i­ble sto­ry of how a klezmer band used a musi­cal cipher to smug­gle vital infor­ma­tion out of the Sovi­et Union. Four musi­cians extract­ed cru­cial infor­ma­tion to help Refuseniks immi­grate and to bring their sto­ries to West­ern audi­ences. Mer­ryl Gold­berg and Vince Houghton’s new book illu­mi­nates this dar­ing sto­ry. Gold­berg is the sax­o­phon­ist and cipher-cre­ator of this 1980s band and Houghton is a his­to­ri­an and espi­onage expert. The two spoke about how this book came to be, the wide-rang­ing impli­ca­tions of Goldberg’s efforts, and more. 

Vince Houghton: You and your three Klezmer band­mates entered Moscow in 1985 with a plan to smug­gle secret infor­ma­tion out of the coun­try under the watch­ful eye of the KGB. You were musi­cians and untrained spies. 

What was the impe­tus for you to share your sto­ry more than forty years later? 

Mer­ryl Gold­berg: It was a bit of a fluke. I was at a par­ty and met two cyber­se­cu­ri­ty experts, and I end­ed up telling them my sto­ry. They were flab­ber­gast­ed to say the least! They said I would become famous — which I did­n’t believe — but with­in a few months I was asked to be a keynote at the RSAC™ con­fer­ence, the biggest cyber­se­cu­ri­ty con­fer­ence on Earth. While attend­ing the con­fer­ence, I was noticed by Jen East­er­ly, Direc­tor of the Cyber­se­cu­ri­ty and Infra­struc­ture Secu­ri­ty Agency (CISA), and a huge deal in the indus­try. I had a huge learn­ing curve on cyber­se­cu­ri­ty, ahead of me, which I dove into headfirst! 

Vince, how did you first hear about the sto­ry of the four Amer­i­can Jew­ish musi­cians turned-ama­teur spies? What was your ini­tial reaction? 

VH: Some col­leagues return­ing from the RSAC™ con­fer­ence men­tioned the tale to me. I assumed it was fic­tion, because it was total­ly unbe­liev­able. Then I read the sto­ry in WIRED and real­ized it was true. My mind was blown.

MG: Giv­en your expe­ri­ence in counter-intel­li­gence and work­ing with the Nation­al Secu­ri­ty Agency, you’ve been privy to many remark­able sto­ries of espi­onage. What is it about this mis­sion that hooked you and then led you to help me tell this story? 

VH: This sto­ry, more than just about any oth­er I’ve encoun­tered, was relat­able to the aver­age per­son. There are dozens and dozens of amaz­ing spy sto­ries out there, but they are almost all told from the per­spec­tive of some intel­li­gence pro­fes­sion­al with years and years of train­ing. This sto­ry is dif­fer­ent. It could have been anyone.

JBC Staff: How did you two connect? 

MG: Vince was told about me after my keynote at RSAC™ and could hard­ly believe it. He looked up my sto­ry and sure enough found out it wasn’t a made-up wild sto­ry by some wannabe adven­ture seek­ing nut­so. Curios­i­ty sparked; he reached out to me, and I hap­pi­ly con­nect­ed with him, with equal curios­i­ty! I was a bit dumb­found­ed that so many peo­ple were inter­est­ed in the sto­ry. I start­ed mak­ing the con­nec­tion, how­ev­er, that cre­at­ing codes was a huge aspect of cyber­se­cu­ri­ty (and spying!). 

VH: Exact­ly as Mer­ryl men­tions — I cold emailed her and told her I’d love to talk to her about her story.

Dur­ing your vis­it to Moscow as well as oth­er cities in the Sovi­et Union, you were able to meet with many Jews and smug­gle out impor­tant infor­ma­tion regard­ing their polit­i­cal and social cir­cum­stances. Can you briefly explain the imme­di­ate reac­tions and actions that result­ed from your trip and the mate­ri­als obtained? 

MG: First off, our vis­its brought in joy, infor­ma­tion, and gifts to the Refus­neiks — some­thing that would encour­age them to con­tin­ue their own efforts. Sec­ond­ly, the infor­ma­tion we brought out of the Sovi­et Union was cru­cial for the future of the Refuseniks. For exam­ple, bring­ing out names and address­es meant new fam­i­lies could be sent invi­ta­tions by the US gov­ern­ment and then begin the process of apply­ing for an exit visa. Equal­ly impor­tant was the infor­ma­tion shared with the West that would pro­vide a cer­tain amount of pro­tec­tion and vis­i­bil­i­ty for the Refuseniks look­ing to immi­grate. Addi­tion­al­ly, we were super lucky being from Boston, because Ted Kennedy was our sen­a­tor and he had a huge role in the Regan/​Gorbachev sum­mits. Keep­ing the accounts of the Refuseniks as a pri­or­i­ty helped bring atten­tion to them at the summits. 

From your per­spec­tive as an his­to­ri­an and espi­onage expert, can you briefly explain the impor­tance of the infor­ma­tion me and my band­mates were able to secure, as well as how we were able to obtain it? 

VH: As far as we can tell (and the ​“we” here is every­one who stud­ies this for a liv­ing), no one has ever used a musi­cal cipher in an ​“oper­a­tional” sense before. They’ve been dis­cussed over the last sev­er­al cen­turies, but most­ly as some­thing fun or inter­est­ing some­one one day might try, but that’s about it. Your cipher allowed the band to bring out infor­ma­tion the Sovi­et gov­ern­ment real­ly didn’t want to get out. The KGB had pre­vi­ous­ly been very effec­tive at pre­vent­ing this kind of infor­ma­tion from leav­ing. But they nev­er antic­i­pat­ed peo­ple using music as a cipher.

The infor­ma­tion brought out was incred­i­bly impor­tant. It allowed for peo­ple to send invi­ta­tions to the Refuseniks (need­ed in order to have a chance to get a visa). But per­haps more impor­tant­ly, it allowed for the Refuseniks’ sto­ries to be pub­li­cized in the West, bring­ing much-need­ed atten­tion to their plights, and pro­vid­ing pow­er­ful peo­ple (i.e., Ted Kennedy) with the infor­ma­tion they need­ed to make a difference.

JBC Staff: What do you hope peo­ple take away from their read­ing of Notes of Decep­tion? 

MG: There’s a para­ble a friend shared with me about a boy on a beach where he came upon thou­sands and thou­sands of starfish that had been beached. The lit­tle boy starts throw­ing them back one by one. A man comes by and asks in dis­be­lief, ​“What are you doing? There’s no way to make a dif­fer­ence and change this sit­u­a­tion. There’s way too many starfish.” The lit­tle boy turns away and picks up anoth­er starfish and throws it back into the ocean. He says to the man, ​“It mat­ters to this starfish.” Acts, no mat­ter how small or incon­se­quen­tial they may seem, make a huge difference. 

VH: I think Merryl’s response to this is dead on. The only thing to add is what I men­tioned ear­li­er: This is a sto­ry in which we see four extreme­ly reg­u­lar peo­ple do extra­or­di­nary things. And they do them in a way in which we can all relate.