WEBVTT - The Last Archivist Introduces: Click Here 0:00:15.396 --> 0:00:20.876 Pushkin. Hey, last Archive listeners, we have something special for 0:00:20.876 --> 0:00:24.476 you today. As you know, we love uncovering forgotten stories 0:00:24.476 --> 0:00:27.436 from history, and we wanted to share another podcast that 0:00:27.476 --> 0:00:30.956 has that same passion. The show is called click Here 0:00:31.396 --> 0:00:34.516 and it tells stories about the world of cyber and intelligence. 0:00:35.156 --> 0:00:39.756 Former NPR Investigations correspondent Dina Temple Raston is the host. 0:00:40.276 --> 0:00:42.316 The episode You're about to hear is about a group 0:00:42.316 --> 0:00:45.836 of American musicians who smuggled messages in and out of 0:00:45.836 --> 0:00:49.556 the former Soviet Union in an ingenious way by burying 0:00:49.596 --> 0:00:53.796 code in their music. Here comes the episode. You can 0:00:53.836 --> 0:01:04.236 find click here wherever you get your podcasts. It's nineteen 0:01:04.316 --> 0:01:08.156 eighty five and Soviet Russia. Mikhail Gorbachev is the head 0:01:08.156 --> 0:01:11.196 of the Communist part and his great opening to the 0:01:11.236 --> 0:01:15.276 West Glasnows and Parastroika is still just a glimmer in 0:01:15.396 --> 0:01:18.956 his i. Nineteen eighty five was still the time of 0:01:18.956 --> 0:01:23.036 that old Soviet Union, the one with defections and the KGB, 0:01:23.956 --> 0:01:27.316 And into this world stepped the most unlikely of people, 0:01:27.876 --> 0:01:39.476 four members of a klezmer ensemble from Boston. Klezmer is 0:01:39.516 --> 0:01:43.396 a kind of Jewish folk music. It's secular music and 0:01:43.956 --> 0:01:47.316 if you've heard Fiddler on the Roof, it's kind of 0:01:47.396 --> 0:01:53.356 in that style, but more authentic. Merril Goldberg is a 0:01:53.356 --> 0:01:56.436 professor of music at cal State sam Marcos and that's 0:01:56.436 --> 0:01:59.236 her on the saxophone. But back in the day she 0:01:59.396 --> 0:02:02.396 was part of a pretty famous Klesmer ensemble called the 0:02:02.476 --> 0:02:06.716 Klezmer Conservatory Band. And they had heard about a group 0:02:06.756 --> 0:02:10.036 in the Soviet Union that went by a very intriguing name, 0:02:10.756 --> 0:02:14.556 the Phantom Orchestra. So we first heard of the Phantom 0:02:14.636 --> 0:02:17.996 Orchestra through the network of people who were working in 0:02:18.036 --> 0:02:21.716 the eighties trying to help people escape from the Soviet Union. 0:02:22.036 --> 0:02:26.396 They were musicians like them. We started thinking we ought 0:02:26.396 --> 0:02:29.436 to find out about these people. These musicians were known 0:02:29.436 --> 0:02:32.636 as refuse Nicks because they wanted to leave the Soviet 0:02:32.756 --> 0:02:35.876 Union but the authorities refused to give them permission. They 0:02:35.876 --> 0:02:39.916 were called the Phantom Orchestra because they really had to 0:02:39.956 --> 0:02:43.236 play somewhat in secret, right, So if they had gone 0:02:43.236 --> 0:02:45.316 out and decided, oh, we're going to play in the park, 0:02:45.716 --> 0:02:48.356 they would have been picked up and arrested. Most of 0:02:48.396 --> 0:02:53.636 them had already been either imprisoned or beat up, or 0:02:54.036 --> 0:02:58.036 had a lot of issues already. They'd gotten fired from 0:02:58.076 --> 0:03:01.996 their jobs, drummed out of academic and professional associations, and 0:03:02.036 --> 0:03:05.556 would even get beaten up just for declaring openly that 0:03:05.636 --> 0:03:09.476 they wanted to immigrate. So when the opportunity of actually 0:03:09.516 --> 0:03:12.836 going to the Soviet Union presented itself, it all struck 0:03:12.876 --> 0:03:15.396 a chord with Merril and her friends in the Klezmer group. 0:03:15.756 --> 0:03:19.316 My friend hankas Nevsky, who is a wonderful musician and 0:03:19.396 --> 0:03:22.196 teaches at New England Conservatory of Music where I was 0:03:22.716 --> 0:03:26.356 a student, and he approached her with this crazy idea. 0:03:26.636 --> 0:03:29.836 The actual ask was to go over to the Soviet 0:03:29.916 --> 0:03:36.116 Union in secret essentially and meet with refused Nicks, mostly 0:03:36.716 --> 0:03:41.756 focus in on the Phantom Orchestra members, and to find 0:03:41.796 --> 0:03:45.636 out information about what they were doing, who they were, 0:03:45.956 --> 0:03:50.076 how they wanted their stories to get out. They were 0:03:50.156 --> 0:03:54.876 four simple musicians from Boston, a saxophonist, singer, a guitarist 0:03:54.876 --> 0:03:57.476 and accordion player, and they were going to go toe 0:03:57.516 --> 0:04:00.876 to toe with one of the world's largest secret police forces. 0:04:01.236 --> 0:04:04.436 So when he asked me, oh, my first reaction I 0:04:05.276 --> 0:04:13.476 think was that sounds crazy cool. I'm in. I'm Dina 0:04:13.516 --> 0:04:17.396 Temple arrested and this is click here a podcast about 0:04:17.396 --> 0:04:21.116 all things cyber and intelligence. Today, at a time when 0:04:21.196 --> 0:04:25.076 Russian President Vladimir Putin is attempting to redraw the Iron curtain, 0:04:25.596 --> 0:04:28.076 We're going to take you back behind it with a 0:04:28.116 --> 0:04:30.916 story about a very different kind of code than the 0:04:30.996 --> 0:04:34.516 Zeros and ones we usually talk about. This code was 0:04:34.556 --> 0:04:37.716 made of music, and it was used to smuggle distant 0:04:37.756 --> 0:04:41.596 messages in and out of the Soviet Union. I remember thinking, 0:04:42.196 --> 0:04:46.476 we're musicians, just creating a code in music would be 0:04:46.516 --> 0:04:51.116 the easiest way to go about this. Merrill will play 0:04:51.196 --> 0:04:58.916 us out. It's no small thing deciding to travel to 0:04:58.956 --> 0:05:01.636 the Soviet Union in the nineteen eighties to secretly help 0:05:01.676 --> 0:05:04.916 people escape, even if you were a trained spy, much 0:05:04.996 --> 0:05:09.036 less a musician from Boston and you think they're professions, 0:05:09.196 --> 0:05:11.716 might actually be a liability. But in a weird way, 0:05:11.836 --> 0:05:14.796 it became a strength. It was the perfect cover story 0:05:14.876 --> 0:05:19.156 and innocent looking cultural exchange. We're just some American musicians 0:05:19.196 --> 0:05:22.556 trying to bridge the cultural divide in the eighties. At 0:05:22.596 --> 0:05:27.356 that time, the more publicity of rashiznik or dissident had, 0:05:27.396 --> 0:05:32.196 the more protection they would have from being imprisoned or 0:05:33.076 --> 0:05:35.796 beaten up or whatever would happen to them. But if 0:05:35.796 --> 0:05:38.916 the West knew about them, they had a better shot 0:05:39.196 --> 0:05:43.836 at getting out. So coding music to sneak out messages 0:05:43.916 --> 0:05:47.236 and details about people who are trying to escape wasn't 0:05:47.276 --> 0:05:50.636 a completely new idea. Marily and her friends had a 0:05:50.676 --> 0:06:01.156 model Josephine Baker table version that's Baker's singing. She was 0:06:01.196 --> 0:06:04.436 a Paris celebrity, a singer, a dancer at Bon Vivant 0:06:04.556 --> 0:06:07.876 in the nineteen twenties, thirties and forties. She was famous 0:06:07.916 --> 0:06:11.276 for walking her pete down the chains in Lize, and 0:06:11.396 --> 0:06:14.036 she also happened to be working for the French Resistance. 0:06:19.196 --> 0:06:22.236 She'd sing at parties, chat up important people, and then 0:06:22.276 --> 0:06:25.716 pass along what she'd learned to the Allies. Her dispatches 0:06:25.716 --> 0:06:29.156 were the stuff of legend. She'd learned details about German 0:06:29.236 --> 0:06:32.636 troop movements or supply lines, and then smuggled the information 0:06:32.676 --> 0:06:36.156 out to the Allies by writing messages in invisible ink. 0:06:36.996 --> 0:06:41.036 She wrote on Sheep music between the notes. In the 0:06:41.116 --> 0:06:43.556 nineteen eighties, when Merrill was trying to work out how 0:06:43.596 --> 0:06:46.716 to bring coded messages into the Soviet Union, she went 0:06:46.716 --> 0:06:50.756 a step further. Her code was embedded in the music itself. 0:06:52.036 --> 0:06:54.716 I studied music in school so I assumed she must 0:06:54.716 --> 0:06:57.636 have created something from the staff. Those five lines and 0:06:57.716 --> 0:07:01.396 poor spaces that are the basis of musical notation are 0:07:01.396 --> 0:07:06.316 represented by letters. The five lines are E, B, D, 0:07:06.796 --> 0:07:10.796 and F, and the four spaces represent the notes fac 0:07:12.156 --> 0:07:15.196 except that wouldn't get you the whole alphabet. You know, 0:07:15.276 --> 0:07:17.196 with the regular notes you only have eight through G, 0:07:17.476 --> 0:07:20.316 So then you have the problem of twenty six letters 0:07:20.356 --> 0:07:24.756 with you know, only eight notes. Although what I did, 0:07:24.796 --> 0:07:29.716 without giving it away, was I created a situation using chromatics. 0:07:29.916 --> 0:07:33.116 Chromatics the twelve half steps when you play the black 0:07:33.116 --> 0:07:42.956 and white keys on a piano, and using different notes, 0:07:42.996 --> 0:07:48.676 figured out all twenty six. I had three leftover ones 0:07:48.796 --> 0:07:50.996 like x y Z, but you don't use x y 0:07:51.116 --> 0:07:53.756 z all that much. So if someone knew music, they'd 0:07:53.796 --> 0:07:57.156 look at it and they'd think, uh, that's modern music. 0:07:57.516 --> 0:07:59.716 Is there anything that you have that you coded that 0:07:59.796 --> 0:08:01.276 you might be able to play for us so that 0:08:01.316 --> 0:08:04.996 we have some idea of what that would sound like. Yeah, sure, 0:08:05.436 --> 0:08:09.396 So Merril picks up her saxophone. Here, all play a 0:08:09.476 --> 0:08:19.276 little bit for you. Believe it or not. There's actually 0:08:19.276 --> 0:08:22.276 the name of a dissonant coded in those notes. This 0:08:22.316 --> 0:08:26.036 one was intro to a new person that they wanted 0:08:26.116 --> 0:08:28.476 us to meet and was a musician, and it was 0:08:28.556 --> 0:08:34.636 for someone in Moscow. Marilyn Hankis and the other members 0:08:34.636 --> 0:08:37.356 of the Klesmer Band spent months preparing for the trip. 0:08:37.836 --> 0:08:39.676 It was more than just inventing a new way to 0:08:39.756 --> 0:08:43.196 code messages, though they did that too. The people at 0:08:43.196 --> 0:08:46.516 the Action for Soviet Jewelry gave them a crash course 0:08:46.636 --> 0:08:51.156 in tradecraft. We had to have several months of kind 0:08:51.196 --> 0:08:54.516 of a learning curve and figuring out how we would 0:08:54.836 --> 0:08:58.396 go in without giving up who we were. And it 0:08:58.476 --> 0:09:01.636 didn't take long to put all that to use. In fact, 0:09:01.956 --> 0:09:04.556 the group needed it as soon as they landed. So 0:09:04.676 --> 0:09:08.316 we land in Moscow and we get off the plane. 0:09:08.556 --> 0:09:12.836 People are talking in little little microphones and we think, 0:09:12.916 --> 0:09:16.516 oh oh oh, because the authorities seem to have been 0:09:16.516 --> 0:09:20.156 expecting them. There were at least two of them, and 0:09:20.316 --> 0:09:24.116 they took us aside. That's hankas Netsky, the teacher who 0:09:24.156 --> 0:09:27.756 brought up this whole idea to Meryl, and they told 0:09:27.836 --> 0:09:31.556 us to get our luggage, but not go anywhere, to 0:09:31.676 --> 0:09:36.196 bring the luggage into the I guess interrogation room. Definitely 0:09:36.316 --> 0:09:39.116 we were flagged. There's no question about it and sit 0:09:39.196 --> 0:09:45.116 with an agent. They start going through everything, and I 0:09:45.196 --> 0:09:49.636 mean absolutely everything, opening up every single thing we have, 0:09:50.236 --> 0:09:55.716 including Meryll's music. They're going page by page by page. 0:09:56.316 --> 0:10:00.196 She held her breath, kept their gaze, and then after 0:10:00.196 --> 0:10:02.996 what seemed like an eternity, they just hand it right 0:10:03.036 --> 0:10:07.876 back to me. Oh, it was just really fantastic. It 0:10:07.956 --> 0:10:11.076 was seven hours before they were permitted to leave the airport. 0:10:11.476 --> 0:10:14.236 There was one guy who spoke only in Russian and 0:10:14.636 --> 0:10:17.356 banged his fist on the table the entire time. When 0:10:17.356 --> 0:10:19.796 they were finally allowed to go, they had this sense 0:10:19.796 --> 0:10:22.676 that while the first hurdle was behind them, what lay 0:10:22.716 --> 0:10:27.956 ahead would be much harder. The Phantom Orchestra was based 0:10:27.956 --> 0:10:31.196 in Tablusi, Georgia, which was still a Soviet republic at 0:10:31.196 --> 0:10:34.156 the time the mission Merril and Hankas and their friends 0:10:34.156 --> 0:10:37.076 had chosen to accept involved trying to meet up with 0:10:37.156 --> 0:10:40.036 four of its members. Two were from a well known 0:10:40.076 --> 0:10:43.956 family of Jewish dissidents, Grigory and Easie Goldstein, and the 0:10:44.036 --> 0:10:48.716 other two were calling for Georgian independence, Teenis and Eduard Gudava, 0:10:48.916 --> 0:10:50.996 both of whom had been sentenced two years of hard 0:10:51.076 --> 0:10:54.876 labor for their activism. All four were considered enemies of 0:10:54.956 --> 0:10:58.036 the state, which meant they were definitely being watched and 0:10:58.116 --> 0:11:00.556 their phones were tapped, so it would be tricky for 0:11:00.636 --> 0:11:03.476 Merril and her crew to make contact with them. I 0:11:03.596 --> 0:11:08.116 had the directions to their apartment actually encoded in my music, 0:11:08.196 --> 0:11:10.636 and that's how we were remembered how to get there. 0:11:10.996 --> 0:11:13.356 I'm sure we stuck out and we didn't know who 0:11:13.356 --> 0:11:15.836 to trust, who not to trust. What they did know 0:11:16.276 --> 0:11:20.756 was that someone was following them. We noticed, for example, 0:11:20.796 --> 0:11:24.636 that we would walk up the street and the last 0:11:24.716 --> 0:11:27.476 car on the block would flash its lights, and then 0:11:27.516 --> 0:11:29.596 we'd cross the street, and then the first car on 0:11:29.636 --> 0:11:33.716 the next block would flash its lights, and then the 0:11:33.796 --> 0:11:37.756 same thing would happen on the next block. So it 0:11:37.956 --> 0:11:40.276 sure seemed like there was something going on. So I 0:11:40.356 --> 0:11:43.756 remember we went to our hotel room and interestingly enough, 0:11:43.796 --> 0:11:46.396 the sink was leaking, and they said as much out 0:11:46.396 --> 0:11:49.036 loud that it was too bad the sink was leaking, 0:11:49.396 --> 0:11:51.196 and then when we got back from dinner, the sink 0:11:51.316 --> 0:11:56.996 was fixed. So that's how closely we were being monitored. 0:11:57.556 --> 0:12:00.436 Marilyn Hankis and the two other Klesmer band members, Jeff 0:12:00.436 --> 0:12:03.476 and Rosalie, found themselves in the middle of a Cold 0:12:03.516 --> 0:12:06.756 war thriller. They'd go to ballet and museums one day, 0:12:06.996 --> 0:12:09.436 hoping to throw the authorities off the scent, and then 0:12:09.556 --> 0:12:12.436 rush off to go and meet Dissonance the next, hoping 0:12:12.476 --> 0:12:17.556 their basic tradecraft wouldn't put their contacts in danger. We devised, 0:12:17.876 --> 0:12:20.876 in our young brains, which now seems kind of cuckoo, 0:12:21.436 --> 0:12:24.036 that all of us would get on the subway because 0:12:24.036 --> 0:12:25.836 we had to take a subway to get to the 0:12:25.836 --> 0:12:29.156 gold Steam's apartment first to make contact. The apartment was 0:12:29.196 --> 0:12:32.756 into Belize, Georgia, and the directions to get there were 0:12:32.836 --> 0:12:36.596 buried in their musical notation code. They didn't have a telephone. 0:12:36.596 --> 0:12:38.916 We couldn't call them. We had to just try to 0:12:38.956 --> 0:12:42.116 find them, so to lose whoever was following them. They 0:12:42.156 --> 0:12:44.316 came up with what they thought was an ingenious plan, 0:12:44.756 --> 0:12:46.596 and so we're all going to get on the subway, 0:12:46.636 --> 0:12:48.836 and then we're all going to get off, and Rosie 0:12:48.836 --> 0:12:50.836 and I are going to jump back on. Then the 0:12:50.876 --> 0:12:53.916 tail would have to choose between the two groups, and 0:12:54.396 --> 0:12:57.916 we thought it worked. They spent hours walking around buildings 0:12:57.956 --> 0:13:01.876 and doubling back and climbing dark and stairwells, until finally 0:13:02.356 --> 0:13:04.796 they find themselves at the door of an apartment and 0:13:04.916 --> 0:13:10.356 they knock and east Side Goldstein in the door. And 0:13:11.476 --> 0:13:15.556 the gods were the first family that we visited. First 0:13:15.556 --> 0:13:18.596 thing we say is we think we've outwitted them, but 0:13:18.716 --> 0:13:20.676 you know we've been interrogated. Tell us if you want 0:13:20.756 --> 0:13:23.556 us just to turn around and go away. Gregory Goldstein 0:13:23.836 --> 0:13:26.876 walks over to the window. There were four cars. He 0:13:26.996 --> 0:13:30.716 pointed too. He said, these are all KGB and they 0:13:30.836 --> 0:13:33.956 laughed at us, like, of course you're being followed, and 0:13:34.316 --> 0:13:36.956 please come in, because it's way more important for you 0:13:36.996 --> 0:13:39.676 to come in. We need you to visit. We need 0:13:39.716 --> 0:13:42.916 you to tell our story when we come back. A 0:13:42.996 --> 0:13:47.436 secret concert with a phantom orchestra, probably the most profound 0:13:47.516 --> 0:13:51.156 music making I have ever in my entire life made. 0:13:55.716 --> 0:13:58.436 The phantom orchestra, of course, couldn't play openly in a 0:13:58.516 --> 0:14:01.476 concert hall. I thought they'd be playing in some secret 0:14:01.596 --> 0:14:05.196 venue after hours. But they actually had their concerts in 0:14:05.276 --> 0:14:11.676 an apartment, the Gudava's apartment, typical small apartment. They had 0:14:11.716 --> 0:14:15.436 an upright piano and a couple of music stands, and 0:14:15.556 --> 0:14:19.396 the Goudavas had at least one guitar, maybe two. The 0:14:19.516 --> 0:14:22.716 musicians gathered along with an audience of neighbors. The chairs 0:14:22.756 --> 0:14:26.156 went into the other room, I remember, and the idea was, hey, 0:14:26.196 --> 0:14:28.956 look we have visitors. They're musicians. It's time for the 0:14:28.996 --> 0:14:31.756 Phantom Orchestra to come meet and play a concert in 0:14:31.796 --> 0:14:35.116 the room. There was a palpable mix of excitement, damned 0:14:35.156 --> 0:14:38.156 a little fear. It wasn't about playing music with the 0:14:38.196 --> 0:14:40.916 Phantom Orchestra that frightened them. They were all prose at that. 0:14:41.516 --> 0:14:44.316 It was about what might follow the consequences of an 0:14:44.356 --> 0:14:47.436 impromptu concert with a room full of dissidents. And I 0:14:47.476 --> 0:14:49.836 think making music in and of itself is not such 0:14:49.876 --> 0:14:52.676 a big deal. Of course, it was the people who 0:14:52.796 --> 0:14:56.356 they were making music with that made it into a 0:14:56.676 --> 0:14:59.916 really big deal. Were you waiting for the KGB to 0:15:00.076 --> 0:15:02.356 burst in any moment? What was going through your twenty 0:15:02.356 --> 0:15:04.996 six year old head. My twenty six year old head 0:15:05.076 --> 0:15:07.076 was like living in the moment. I will tell you 0:15:07.156 --> 0:15:10.236 that Merrill and Hankis remembered the whole evening as if 0:15:10.276 --> 0:15:14.236 it were yesterday. I do remember just being transported that 0:15:14.396 --> 0:15:20.276 it was this feeling perhaps of amazement, of relief, of 0:15:20.636 --> 0:15:36.276 immediate camaraderie. There was klezmer music and traditional songs, and 0:15:36.316 --> 0:15:41.196 then this moment when everything seemed to come together with 0:15:41.356 --> 0:16:06.596 the standard that everyone loved, and then everyone who was there, 0:16:06.876 --> 0:16:10.036 the members of the orchestra, the visiting musician, the audience, 0:16:10.596 --> 0:16:23.756 they all broke into song. What you're hearing now is 0:16:23.836 --> 0:16:28.676 actually a Phantom Orchestra recording. It touched us in a 0:16:28.756 --> 0:16:33.356 way that I hadn't been touched before. And I think 0:16:33.396 --> 0:16:37.236 because the whole feeling of the song somewhere over the 0:16:37.356 --> 0:16:42.196 rainbow and the hope in that and for an evening, 0:16:42.436 --> 0:16:45.756 the Soviet minders, the cloak and dagger, the coded messages, 0:16:46.276 --> 0:16:49.476 they all faded away and the music became all there 0:16:49.716 --> 0:17:04.716 was for the people there who had so much courage 0:17:05.636 --> 0:17:10.076 and you know, we're constantly battling, you know, whatever was 0:17:10.116 --> 0:17:13.716 going to happen to them for their activism, saying music 0:17:14.116 --> 0:17:17.076 was the time when in their brains they could be 0:17:17.276 --> 0:17:25.876 totally one percent free. There was a lot of emotion 0:17:26.596 --> 0:17:29.596 when we played with the Phantom Orchestra, not just from 0:17:29.676 --> 0:17:36.076 them but from the audience, and we were really floating 0:17:37.036 --> 0:17:45.156 when we left that room that night. As they went 0:17:45.196 --> 0:17:47.516 back out into the night, they tried to recall all 0:17:47.516 --> 0:17:49.956 the details that they would later code into their music. 0:17:50.316 --> 0:17:52.636 What they would eventually tell the world was going on 0:17:52.716 --> 0:17:56.876 behind the Iron curtain. A marriage announcement here, a family 0:17:56.956 --> 0:17:59.956 history there. And the hope was once the world knew 0:17:59.996 --> 0:18:02.836 they existed, they'd have the leverage they needed to force 0:18:02.876 --> 0:18:05.836 officials in the Soviet Union to let them go. And 0:18:05.876 --> 0:18:08.996 I think that's part of what the goal of many 0:18:09.196 --> 0:18:12.436 of the folks was is. You know, if your story 0:18:12.636 --> 0:18:16.436 is never told, it's like it hasn't happened. So it 0:18:16.516 --> 0:18:20.716 was really important to get stories out there. It means 0:18:20.716 --> 0:18:25.436 you exist and other people know you exist. As they 0:18:25.516 --> 0:18:28.076 left the Goudava's house that night, Merrily and her friends 0:18:28.076 --> 0:18:31.916 were more than just musicians. They were messengers and now 0:18:32.236 --> 0:18:35.276 they just had to get home. Not long after the 0:18:35.316 --> 0:18:38.356 Secret concert, the Boston musicians awoke to an early morning 0:18:38.396 --> 0:18:43.756 call at the hotel. We were told to be down 0:18:43.956 --> 0:18:46.996 in the office at you know, whatever time. It was 0:18:47.076 --> 0:18:52.196 pretty early, and they hand us a baggy they were 0:18:52.196 --> 0:18:56.156 the Soviet authorities, with a tea bag and a hard 0:18:56.196 --> 0:18:59.316 boiled egg and a piece of salami, I think, and 0:18:59.636 --> 0:19:03.636 maybe some crackers, and they keep us very separated from 0:19:03.676 --> 0:19:07.036 everybody else. Their minders made clear they knew that Merril 0:19:07.076 --> 0:19:09.596 and Hankis and the others had met with the Fantom Orchestra, 0:19:09.996 --> 0:19:12.956 and they weren't happy about it. They took their passports, 0:19:13.036 --> 0:19:16.436 put them into cars and just started driving. And then 0:19:16.476 --> 0:19:20.396 they drove us for what seemed to be like hours 0:19:20.436 --> 0:19:23.876 and hours, and I thought, oh, man, now they're really 0:19:23.876 --> 0:19:26.516 going to do it. They're gonna lock us up. Hours later, 0:19:26.636 --> 0:19:29.156 they ended up at the airport, and while they didn't 0:19:29.276 --> 0:19:31.676 end up in a Soviet prison, they were told they 0:19:31.676 --> 0:19:33.996 were going to be thrown out of the country deported. 0:19:34.596 --> 0:19:37.236 But before they could go, there would be one more search. 0:19:37.836 --> 0:19:41.196 Though this time the four actually had even more to hide, 0:19:41.636 --> 0:19:44.356 not just the names and addresses of contacts, but now 0:19:44.356 --> 0:19:47.156 they had their stories and messages for the West. I 0:19:47.236 --> 0:19:52.196 remember being surrounded by military and they go through all 0:19:52.196 --> 0:19:55.356 of our stuff again and again. They went through every 0:19:55.356 --> 0:19:59.076 single page in my music and eventually handed it right back. 0:20:03.716 --> 0:20:06.596 The stories they smuggled out went very public once they 0:20:06.596 --> 0:20:10.276 returned to the States. There were speeches and congressional hearings 0:20:10.316 --> 0:20:12.916 and calls to help the Goldsteins and Gudavas and other 0:20:12.996 --> 0:20:16.996 refusniks who wanted to leave the Soviet Union. Remember, the 0:20:17.076 --> 0:20:19.716 purpose of their trip was to draw world attention to 0:20:19.756 --> 0:20:23.396 the human rights situation in the Soviet Union, and it worked. 0:20:23.876 --> 0:20:26.876 The following year, the Goldsteins were allowed to immigrate to Israel, 0:20:27.276 --> 0:20:30.316 and while the Gudavas were initially jailed after the concert, 0:20:30.476 --> 0:20:33.516 accused of taking part in treason as activity and blame 0:20:33.596 --> 0:20:36.236 for the hearings that took place on Capitol Hill, the 0:20:36.276 --> 0:20:39.396 two were finally released in April nineteen eighty seven on 0:20:39.476 --> 0:20:43.116 the condition that they leave the Soviet Union. They arrived 0:20:43.116 --> 0:20:49.276 in Boston that September. The crazy thing is the more 0:20:49.316 --> 0:20:52.756 things change, the more they stay the same. Tens of 0:20:52.836 --> 0:20:55.756 thousands of Jews have left Russias since Putin's invasion of 0:20:55.876 --> 0:20:59.476 Ukraine earlier this year, and now Moscow is moving to 0:20:59.476 --> 0:21:02.916 close a nonprofit organization that helps them emigrate to Israel. 0:21:03.316 --> 0:21:06.836 It's called the Jewish Agency for Israel and it's operated 0:21:06.836 --> 0:21:13.236 in Russia since nineteen eighty nine. That story came to 0:21:13.396 --> 0:21:16.236 us from click Here, a podcast about the world of 0:21:16.276 --> 0:21:20.316 cyber and intelligence. You can listen to more episodes every Tuesday. 0:21:20.476 --> 0:21:23.836 Wherever you get your podcasts, just search for click here.