Notes of Deception
How a Quartet of American Musicians Outwitted the KGB
Will be published approx. on 8. October 2026
Book
Hardback
304 pages
978-1-335-01634-8 (ISBN)
Description
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.
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.
Reviews / Votes
"Human freedom, the sweet music of the soul, is at the heart of Notes of Deception-a remarkable, highly-entertaining tale of spy-like deception in the cause of helping Soviet Jews and dissidents escape the grip of Russian oppression during the 1980s Cold War. This book will take its rightful place among the most thrilling stories of the Cold War." -Thomas Maier, award-winning author of The Invisible Spy"A lively memoir of how four plucky American musicians sought to bring hope to Soviet Jews and wound up playing cat and mouse with the KGB." - David E. Hoffman, author of The Billion Dollar Spy
More details
Edition
Original
Language
English
Place of publication
United States
Publishing group
HarperCollins Publishers Inc
Product notice
sewn/stitched
Cloth over boards
Illustrations
16-page black & white photo insert
Dimensions
Height: 235 mm
Width: 156 mm
Thickness: 30 mm
Weight
472 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-335-01634-8 (9781335016348)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Merryl Goldberg | Merryl &. Vince Goldberg & Houghton
Notes of Deception
How a Quartet of American Musicians Outwitted the KGB
E-Book
approx. 08/2026
Hanover Square Press
€9.01
Not yet available
Persons
Dr. Merryl Goldberg was the saxophonist and cipher-creator for the KCB quartet that entered the Soviet Union in 1985. She is currently a Professor in the School of Arts at California State University San Marcos and Executive Director of Center ARTES (a university center dedicated to restoring arts to education). She toured internationally for 13 years with the Klezmer Conservatory Band, and has recorded over a dozen CDs with major labels. Dr. Goldberg received her undergraduate degree from New England Conservatory of Music and her Doctorate in Teaching, Curriculum and Learning Environments, from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. In 2018 she was awarded the Wang Family Excellence Award for Outstanding Faculty Teaching in the California State University (23 campus) systemwide. Merryl serves on the Board of CREATE CA and is Trustee for the California State Summer School for the Arts. She regularly speaks at national, statewide, and local conferences on the need and benefits of arts in education. Dr. Vince Houghton is Director of the National Security Agency's National Cryptologic Museum. He is the former Historian and Curator of the International Spy Museum in Washington, DC. Vince has a PhD in Diplomatic and Military History from the University of Maryland, where his research centered on US scientific and technological intelligence (nuclear intelligence) in the Second World War and early Cold War. His Master's degree, also from the University of Maryland, focused on the foreign policies of the United States and the Soviet Union. He has taught extensively at the middle school, high school, and university levels, most recently at the University of Maryland, where he lectured on the History of US Intelligence, US Diplomatic History, the Cold War, and the History of Science. He is also a veteran of the United States Army, and served in the Balkans, where he worked closely with both civilian and military intelligence agencies in several capacities. Dr. Houghton is the author of three books: Nuking the Moon: And Other Intelligence Plots and Military Schemes Left on the Drawing Board (Penguin, 2019); The Nuclear Spies: America's Atomic Intelligence Program Against Hitler and Stalin (Cornell University Press, 2019); and Covert City: The Cold War and the Making of Miami (Public Affairs, 2024).