#203. How a Quartet of Musicians Outwitted the KGB and Helped Secure the Freedom of Soviet Jews

Merryl Goldberg and Vince Houghton are the co-authors of Notes of Deception: How a Quartet of Musicians Outwitted the KGB, which chronicles a mission in 1985 by Merryl and three other members of the Klezmer Conservatory Band to smuggle information to and from Soviet Refusniks – we’ll explain that term in a moment – by encoding it in their music, all while being monitored, followed, and interrogated by the KGB. Merryl was a saxophonist for the first thirteen years of Boston’s Klezmer Conservatory, founded in 1980 by Hankus Netsky, who also made the trip along with mandolinist Jeff Warschauer and vocalist Rosalie Gerut. Merryl is a professor in the School of Arts at California State University San Marcos. She is the Executive Director of Center ARTES, which is dedicated to restoring the arts to education. and has written books on that theme. Vince Houghton is an American historian specializing in diplomatic and military history, with a focus on intelligence studies. He is the curator of the National Security Agency’s National Cryptologic Museum and formerly served as chief historian and curator of the International Spy Museum in Washington, D.C. When Vince heard the Klezmer Conservatory Band’s trip to Russia, he couldn’t believe that the Klezmer Conservatory Band, the KCB, had outwitted the KGB. He reached out to Merryl and wound up becoming a co-author of Notes of Deception. Recorded 10/14/26.