Infamously known as “the Falcon and the Snowman,” this unlikely duo somehow managed to create a serious hole in the national security of the US government in the 1970s through their low-profile efforts. Boyce, who was working for an aerospace company on contract with the US government, stumbled upon some top secret information. He decided to sell the information to the Soviets by trafficking the intelligence through his friend Lee, a drug-runner, who would sell it to the Russian embassy in Mexico. However, when Lee was arrested for an unrelated charge, their scheme was uncovered.
Christopher John Boyce
Christopher John Boyce (born February 16, 1953) was a defense contractor who was convicted for selling US spy satellite secrets to the Soviet Union in the 1970s. He wrote a book entitled American Sons. The Untold Story of the Falcon and the Snowman, which details the 1970s events to events leading up to his release in 2002 and his actions afterwards.
Espionage
Boyce is the son of a security chief at McDonnell Douglas who was a former FBI agent. He, along with childhood friend Andrew Daulton Lee, was raised in the affluent seaside community of Palos Verdes Peninsula near Los Angeles. In 1974, Boyce was hired at TRW, a Southern California aerospace firm in Redondo Beach, California. His father, in his position as an aerospace security manager, was able to help his son obtain employment. Boyce was within months promoted to a highly sensitive position in TRW’s “Black Vault” (classified communications centre) with a top secret security clearance.
Boyce claims that he began getting misrouted cables from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) discussing the desire of the agency to depose the government of Prime Minister Gough Whitlam in Australia. Boyce claimed the CIA wanted Whitlam removed from office because he wanted to close the U.S. military bases in Australia, including the vital Pine Gap secure communications facility, and withdraw Australian troops from Vietnam. For these reasons some claim that the U.S. government pressure was a major factor in the dismissal of Whitlam as prime minister by the governor general, Sir John Kerr, who according to Boyce, was referred to as our man Kerr by CIA officers. Through the cable traffic Boyce saw that the CIA was involving itself in such a manner, not just with Australia but with other democratic, industrialized allies. Boyce considered going to the press, but believed the earlier disclosure of the media as regards CIA involvement in the 1973 Chilean coup d’état had not changed anything for the better.
Instead, he gathered a quantity of classified documents concerning secure U.S. communications ciphers and spy satellite development and had his friend Andrew Daulton Lee, a cocaine and heroin dealer since his high school days (hence his nickname, “The Snowman”) deliver them to Soviet embassy officials in Mexico City, returning with large sums of cash for Boyce (nicknamed “The Falcon” because of his longtime interest in falconry) and himself.
Boyce, then 23, was exposed after Lee was arrested by Mexican police in front of the Soviet embassy on January 6, 1977, on the suspicion of having killed a police officer. During his interrogation Lee, who had top secret microfilm in his possession when arrested, confessed to being a Soviet spy and implicated Boyce who was arrested on January 16, 1977, when the FBI found him at the shack he was renting near Riverside, California. He was convicted May 14, 1977, of espionage and sentenced to 40 years in prison, initially at Terminal Island and then the Metropolitan Correctional Centre in San Diego. On July 10, 1979, he was transferred to the federal penitentiary in Lompoc, California.
Escape
On January 21, 1980, Boyce escaped from Lompoc. While a fugitive, Boyce carried out 17 bank robberies in Idaho and Washington state. Adopting the alias of “Anthony Edward Lester,” Boyce did not believe he could live as a fugitive forever, and began to study aviation in an attempt to flee to the Soviet Union, where he believed he would accept a commission as an officer in the Soviet Armed Forces. On August 21, 1981, Boyce was arrested while eating in his car outside “The Pit Stop,” a drive-in restaurant in Port Angeles, Washington. Authorities had received a tip about Boyce’s whereabouts from his former bank robbery confederates.
According to Boyce’s account in American Sons, The Untold Story of the Falcon and the Snowman, he was studying aviation not to flee to Russia but to help Daulton Lee escape from prison in Lompoc.
Senate testimony
In April 1985, Boyce gave testimony on how to prevent insider spy threats to the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations as part of its Government Personnel Security Program.
Release
Boyce was released from prison on parole on 16 September 2002 after serving a little over 25 years, accounting for his time spent outside from the escape. In October 2002 shortly after Boyce was freed, he married attorney Kathleen Mills. She had lobbied successfully for Boyce’s espionage accomplice, Andrew Daulton Lee, to be awarded parole in 1998. Following Lee’s release from prison, she turned her attention to freeing Boyce, and the two fell in love through their correspondence. Boyce was released from parole after serving 5 years in July 2008.
Boyce later justified his actions by claiming that he was selling this information in the hopes of fostering peace between the Soviet Union and the United States.
Andrew Daulton Lee
Andrew Daulton Lee (born 1952) was an American who was convicted of espionage for his involvement in the spying activities of his childhood friend, Christopher Boyce.
Lee was the adopted eldest son of Dr. Daulton Lee, a wealthy California physician. His lifelong friendship with Boyce led him into espionage activities after Boyce, a code clerk employed with the large US defence contractor, TRW (headquartered in the Los Angeles community of Redondo Beach), began stealing classified documents detailing how to decrypt secure US government message traffic and detailed specifications of the latest US spy satellites with the intention of delivering them to the agents of the Soviet Union. With Boyce’s stolen documents, Lee travelled to Mexico City, where he delivered them to Soviet embassy officials. Lee often also would use these trips as an opportunity to engage in drug deals while not working on espionage. A common tactic of Lee’s drug smuggling was to learn of airline routes, where he would fly from Mexico to the United States, hiding the drugs inside a compartment of the plane (mainly the airline restroom), purchasing a ticket to whichever destination the same aeroplane was scheduled, then recapturing the drug stash after disembarking at the new destination.
Lee and Boyce made an agreement to evenly split the profits from the espionage ring. Boyce had used his share mainly for his personal use. Lee used his split of the profits to further his drug business, purchasing more expensive drugs, such as heroin, and being able to gain tremendous profits by selling the expensive, hard-to-obtain drugs in the United States. At one meeting with his Soviet handlers, Lee proposed that they should assist him in his drug trade by transporting cocaine from Peru to the Soviet embassy in Mexico under diplomatic seal. At points when Boyce was doubting the effectiveness of his espionage, Lee had convinced him that the spy ring should expand. Lee had proposed adding his younger brother as an alternate courier, as well as recruiting a friend who was a US Navy sailor aboard an aircraft carrier, and having a fellow drug dealer be brought into the spy ring to sell the same intelligence reports to other foreign nations, namely China. Lee did indeed (behind Boyce’s back) make the copies of the reports with the intention of selling them to the Chinese.
In December 1976, Lee (with top secret microfilm in his possession) was arrested by Mexican police in front of the Soviet embassy on the misplaced suspicion of having killed a Mexico City police officer. Under torture he confessed instead to espionage, quickly implicating Boyce in the scheme. Lee was returned to the United States, where he was convicted of espionage. He was sentenced to life in prison and moved to the federal penitentiary in Lompoc, California. Boyce received a sentence of 40 years. Lee’s heavier sentence for the same offence was likely due to his prior criminal record and admitted drug trafficking. While imprisoned, Lee lost access to drugs and had no choice but to sober up from his drug addictions. After a period of withdrawal, Lee ended his drug dependency. When Boyce escaped from prison in 1980, Lee was immediately remanded to another facility in Terre Haute, Indiana, a move that caused the end of their friendship.
Lee was portrayed by actor Sean Penn in director John Schlesinger’s 1985 movie The Falcon and the Snowman, based on the book of the same name by Robert Lindsey. Lee’s drug-dealing earned him the nickname “The Snowman,” while Boyce’s interest in falconry won him his own sobriquet. Boyce was played in the film by actor Timothy Hutton.
Lee was released on parole in 1998. Kathleen Mills, an activist who had worked towards earning Lee parole, turned her attention towards the release of Boyce following Lee’s freedom and eventually married Boyce. At some point after his release, Lee was hired by Sean Penn to be Penn’s personal assistant.
