Infamous America - SPIES LIKE US Ep. 3 | “Classified Top Secret”

Episode Date: November 30, 2022

Against all odds, the plan works. Chris Boyce steals Top Secret materials from his employer and Daulton Lee smuggles them into Mexico and sells them to the Russians. But cracks and tension begin to show. Chris nearly gets caught. Daulton’s carefree attitude and his drug business put them both at risk. When the Russians press for more information, new troubles are on the horizon. Check out the Jordan Harbinger show today! jordanharbinger.com/start Join Black Barrel+ for ad-free episodes and bingeable seasons: blackbarrel.supportingcast.fm/join Apple users join Noiser+ for ad-free episodes and bingeable seasons. Click the Noiser+ banner on Apple or go to noiser.com/subscriptions to get started with a 7-day free trial. On YouTube, subscribe to INFAMOUS+ for ad-free episodes and bingeable seasons. Hit “JOIN” on the Infamous America YouTube homepage.  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCm4V_wVD7N1gEB045t7-V0w/featured For more details, please visit www.blackbarrelmedia.com. Our social media pages are: @blackbarrelmedia on Facebook and Instagram, and @bbarrelmedia on Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the summer of 1975, in the beach cities of Los Angeles, Chris Boyce and Dalton Lee probably filled their time the same way many young men in their 20s did. They drank beers and cocktails and smoked marijuana and dabbled with cocaine. They relaxed by pools and tried to play it cool with the gorgeous women they encountered everywhere. They lamented the state of the Los Angeles Lakers, who had been in the NBA finals two years earlier but were dismal in 1917. and missed the playoffs for the first time since 1958.

Chris and Dalton cheered half-heartedly for the Dodgers, who finished a distant second in baseball's National League West Division. The Dodgers ended up 20 games behind the Cincinnati Reds, whose fabled Big Red Machine, won the first of Back-to-Back World Series that October. Chris and Dalton surely availed themselves of the 75 miles of beaches in L.A. County. But like many, they might have waded into the Pacific Ocean more cautiously than summers before. Like most Americans, the two friends certainly would have gone to a movie theater to see a film based on a book about a killer great white shark that terrorized a coastal resort town. Jaws would make more than $100 million in its first two months and overtake the godfather for the highest grossing movie of all time.

But Chris and Dalton were also spending their time in a unique way. running a two-man espionage racket, selling American intelligence secrets to the Soviet Union. In early spring, when Dalton had walked into the Soviet embassy in Mexico City with stolen communications about the CIA's surveillance of Russians, neither he nor Chris thought it would work. But it did. The KGB handler whom Dalton talked to liked what he saw, and the Russians were greedy for more. Over the next several months, Dalton would live mostly in Mexico, returning only for parcels of secrets from Chris. He would receive a crash course in the spy trade and live a life of code names and passwords,

clandestine signals, and encrypted messages. In many ways, Chris's deception would be even greater. He would continue on as usual at his employer, an aerospace company called Thompson-Rameau-Wldridge. He faked his way through his job at TRW. and lost himself in the atmosphere of the black vault. He found new ways to take advantage of the operation's laughable security to steal valuable, covert intel. They started earning thousands of dollars, and then tens of thousands.

But Chris Boyce already had the sense that they had said in motion something that couldn't be stopped. And sooner or later, the spy games would destroy both their lives. From BlackBarrel Media, this is Infamous America. I'm your host Chris Wimmer. In this season, we're telling the wild story of how two friends ended up perpetrating one of the most notorious acts of espionage in the 20th century. This is episode three, classified top secret.

After Dalton's initial meeting with a KGB agent at the Soviet embassy in Mexico City, Dalton temporarily set up shop in the resort community of Puerto Vallarda. Remaining in Mexico, far from American authorities, had definite advantage. He had an L.A. sheriff's detective on his trail. When Dalton was arrested for drug possession a few months earlier, he made a deal so he wouldn't have to go to jail. He agreed to act as an informant, but he clearly wasn't doing that now. Second, he had a court date coming up for that arrest, and he had no intention of keeping it. When he didn't show up, the judge would issue a bench warrant for Dalton Lee's arrest. Now, Dalton was officially a wanted fugitive.

But instead of worrying about it, he hunkered down in Mexico and waited for his next meeting with Vasily Ivanovich Okana. Okana was the KGB agent who had first greeted this strange little American, Dalton Lee, when Dalton had randomly walked into the Soviet embassy and announced his intention to sell American secrets. After that first meeting, in early April 1975, Dalton had called Chris and told him about the successful mission. Dalton was now eager for a second meeting, and he was already singing a gospel of easy money. He told Chris, as long as you can keep the secrets coming, this will be a windfall. And at the end of April, O'Connor agreed to another meeting. This time, O'Connor and Dalton met in a restaurant in another part of Mexico City.

After pleasantries and drink orders, O'Conna grew temporarily severe. O'Conna hissed, this is critical. under no circumstances can you ever return to the embassy in Mexico City unless we are with you. Sure, Dalton answered. O'Conna was silent for a moment and then asked Dalton to look him in the eyes. O'Conna said, The Americans watch every single person who enters our embassy, just as we watch who enters theirs.

To be seen entering the Soviet embassy again would jeopardize everything we might be able to accomplish together. Dalton dropped his perpetual swagger for a moment and answered sincerely, I understand. Good, O'Connor said. Then let's order some food. What accompanied dinner was a personal questionnaire disguised as small talk. O'cona was feeling out a potential asset. He had to credit the small Americans' gall to have simply strolled into the embassy of the USSR with American state secrets. He hoped that that sort of gall also came to.

with an understanding of the stakes and the importance of discretion. He hoped that the overtly confident young man in front of him would not end up in prison because the information he seemed to have access to was extremely valuable. After lunch, the two men set a date to meet the following month and discreetly went their separate ways. Later that night, Dalton called Chris. They had developed a system where Dalton would call a rotating set of pay phones

at a certain time. Chris would be waiting at the appropriate phone. They devised code names on the off chance that they were under surveillance. They really leaned into the James Bond spycraft stuff. When Dalton called Chris that April night, he was all business. He said, May 18th, I need to get back to Mexico City with good stuff. Dalton stressed that the Russians were eager and he needed high-quality information. But he advised Chris that they should string the Russians along.

They shouldn't give up the best stuff or a lot of stuff right away. They should steadily milk this for all it was worth. Chris digested his friend's enthusiasm. He smiled at the idea of stringing along the KGB. In Chris's morality, the KGB were not the good guys. They were simply the benefactors of his desire to make his nation's intelligence community pay. But he agreed and said he would get to work.

He knew his friend was an operator who could handle himself in a tricky situation as long as he tempered his drug use. As Chris walked home that night in late April 1975, he hoped Dalton truly understood the severity of the game they were now playing. While Dalton enjoyed Puerro Vallarda between meetings, Chris maintained his normal schedule at TRW and was almost able to forget the fact that he had just committed treason. He enjoyed some solitary weekends with his Falcons,

a pastime that always calmed his anxious brain. He'd also met a girl named Lana. Their chance encounter happened after Chris took a bartending job a few nights a week at a local dive bar. He and Lana hit it off, chatting over the bar on a slow night. He loved her energy, and she loved his contemplative nature. Soon they were a couple. His day-to-day life at TRW remained a ritual of robot-like procedures, juxtaposed with a seemingly endless summer of cocktails and arguments over who could roll the best joint. Chris knew he was drinking more. It could easily have been a coping mechanism to forget how he was deceiving his co-workers, his employees, and his nation. When Chris finally heard from Dalton, after Dalton had received his directions for the May meeting, he had to refocus. The hardest part was mustering the courage to take from

the confidential areas of TRW. The action of it was alarmingly easy. Although it was a short list of people who could actually access the black fault, the people on the list could act with impunity. The simplest way for Chris to leave with top secret information was to use the same security satchels they used for their runs to the liquor store. No security measure had ever led to the discovery of tequila, triple sec, or sour mix, so why should it lead to the discovery of transmissions from Australia about spy satellites? Still, Chris knew he couldn't get cocky. By then, he had been on the job long enough to know that there was always the threat of a government inspection. But he also knew that there was almost no oversight on the TRW campus. The chief officer

responsible for security procedures in the Black Vault was known to Chris and his co-workers as the token hippie. He cared more about where he could find the best vacant swimming pools for skateboarding than being vigilant about security. When offered a freshly shaken cocktail from a black vault employee, the chief officer never refused.

In the early days of Chris's operation, he was at TRW for one of the government inspections. The announcement came just an hour before the inspector arrived, and it had whipped the entire department into a frenzy. bottles were stashed. Marijuana plants were decorated with lampshades for hats, and Jean Norman furiously ripped down the penthouse centerfolds that adorned his cubicle. For good reason, Chris's anxiety was tenfold worse. He tore open his desk drawers to make sure he hadn't forgotten to return anything confidential to its proper place.

The inspector had been there for about an hour when he asked Chris to open the vault where the daily cipher cards were kept. When Chris did so, the inspector reached in and lifted out a binder. In it, each page coincided with a calendar day, and on it was a sealed plastic envelope containing the day's corresponding card. The inspector began flipping the pages. He stopped on a page for a day that was coming up in a few weeks. He ran his hand over the page where the card was. The plastic seal had been opened, and the card had been reinserted into the sleeve backwards

and upside down. The inspector looked up, but Chris pretended to be doing paperwork at his desk. In reality, he was using every ounce of willpower to keep from exploding with panic. He had been incredibly careless. It was a stupid, stupid mistake. Without a word, the inspector took the card out of its slot

and then reinserted it correctly. He pressed the envelope closed, shut the binder, and handed it back to Chris. The inspector left the black vault, went into an office with the chief security officer, the token hippie, and shut the door. Now Chris's panic exploded. He searched for a story that could explain why a sealed envelope for a cipher card that wasn't supposed to be opened for weeks was open,

and why the card in the envelope had clearly been removed and then put back incorrectly. Chris could say he grabbed the wrong month. He took the card out for it. April 10th, when he meant to take out the card for March 10th. That might work, but only if the inspector didn't look any further. If the inspector kept searching the binder, he would see that cards for lots of other days had also been removed. Chris was cooked. He could feel that it was all about to come crashing down. But then 20 minutes later, the inspector walked out of the office and headed to his car.

The token hippies stepped out of the office, read a brief list of minor infractions, and then told the Black Vault team that they had all passed inspection. Chris was astonished, relieved but astonished. If that experience was one of the worst things that could happen at TRW, then he couldn't help but wonder,

could it really be this easy to be a spy? In early May of 1975, Dalton returned to the U.S. as quietly as he could to get the parcel for his meeting with the Soviets. Although this would be the third meeting, both he and Chris agreed it felt like the first. The first meeting had been Dalton's spontaneous arrival at the Russian embassy. The second was the dinner with KGB Agent O'Connor that was far more of an orientation than anything else. But this time, there was an explicit understanding that Dalton would be carrying secret intelligence for the express purpose of selling it to the Russians, and that he would be paid generously for it.

Chris had been renting an apartment in Redondo Beach, and that's where he and Dalton met to go over the plan. Dalton met Chris's new girlfriend, Lana, and they waited to talk about their covert activities until she left. Then Chris told Dalton, under no circumstances can you tell them my name? He stressed the point so often he could sense Dalton's annoyance. Dalton pointed out that he was very good at not giving names. He was supposed to be working as an informant for the L.A. County Sheriff's Office right now, but he was hiding from them. He wasn't a snitch. Chris dropped it and moved on to other important things Dalton needed to remember.

One, let them believe there's lots of intel to buy, but we're not going to give it all at once. Two, don't agree to meet anyone outside the city or here in Los Angeles. And three, never, ever promised something that Chris couldn't get, especially the frequencies of the KW7 machines that were used to receive coded messages from around the world. Those frequencies weren't kept in the black vault, so Chris couldn't access them. Dalton nodded his assurance.

The two spies clinked their glasses and gulped a shot of tequila, to good luck and safe travels. On May 18th, Dalton stood across, from a massive modernist mural about a mile from the Soviet embassy in Mexico City. With his long hair, bushy mustache, and designer sunglasses, Dalton could have been a student or just another American tourist. He heard heavy footsteps behind him that came to an abrupt stop. He heard a voice, almost completely void of a Russian accent.

Do you know the restaurants in San Francisco, the voice said. Without turning, Dalton spoke the appropriate. coded response. No, but I know the restaurants in Los Angeles. Now Dalton turned around to see his KGB handler. Even in the early summer heat, O'Conna wore full business attire. In Dalton's gregarious way, he considered raising his arms for an embrace. O'Conna made the decision for him by offering a quick handshake. I hope your trip here went well, the agent said. Let's walk. The crowded streets swallowed the two men as they strolled. O'Connor gave Dalton the location of a restaurant in the area where they would meet later. Dalton said he'd be there at eight o'clock sharp.

Excellent, the Russian said, and have you something for me. Dalton reached into his bag and pulled out an envelope that contained the cards for the encryption machine. O'Conna took them, nodded, and stowed them in the pocket of his blazer. The agent hailed a cab, and then he was gone. Dalton watched the cab disappear and then walked away with thoughts of ice-cold cocktails in his mind. But not too many. He had to be straight for later. If all went well, he'd be counting his money over dinner. Dalton strolled into the first bar he came across,

already dreaming of the ways he would spend his share of the big payday. That evening, when Dalton met Okina for dinner, there was nothing but good energy. The men toasted their glasses of vodka. ordered far too much food and enjoyed music from the street outside. Early in the meal, Okana asked Dalton to reach his hand under the table and grab an envelope. Dalton accepted it and quickly looked inside. He saw a stack of $100 bills. The well-traveled drug dealer could eyeball a wad of cash as good as any pusher in L.A. There was at least $3,000 in the envelope.

dope. Dalton stashed the money and went back to his dinner and his vodka. The conversation turned to what Ocana assumed was their mutual hatred of American capitalism, which was a little ironic, considering they had just completed a capitalist transaction. Dalton pretended to agree. But when the waiter removed the dinner plates and another vodka had been poured, O'Conna began to question the young spy in training. The agent continuously asked about Dalton's friend, the one in America who had access to the intelligence. O'Connor went so far as to imply that he did not necessarily believe there was a friend. Maybe Dalton himself was the expert in spy satellite surveillance at the unnamed aerospace

company. Dalton protested. I'm clearly not an expert in this satellite stuff, he said. O'Conna followed up with more questions about the friend, but Dalton evaded. Dalton could tell, even when O'Connor moved on to other questions, that the subject wasn't dead. O'Connor had so many other questions that Dalton had to ask to borrow a piece of paper from his handler and a pen from their waiter. O'Connor wanted details. What was the company? Where was it located? Besides channeling these top secret messages, what other work did they do there?

What were the models of the encryption machines they used? And what were the frequencies used? And what were the frequencies used? for the machines. Dalton scribbled furiously, fighting the fog of vodka. All the while, he said exactly what he was not supposed to say. Don't worry, don't worry, my friend can get whatever you want.

When O'Connor finally finished, the two men discussed protocols for communication going forward. They shared one last drink and both stumbled out into the Mexico City night. Dalton stumbled far more than O'Connor, but he wasn't so drunk that he

forgot the thousands of dollars tucked into his jacket or the feeling that this was just the beginning. He was anxious to get back to the States and share it with his partner. When he returned to Palos Verdes, he spent a night at Chris's apartment and filled his friend in on the big meeting. He entertained Chris with stories of how he'd been contacted for his monthly rendezvous. He would receive a postcard with a phony, cursory message written on it. The message would contain a number. was how Dalton knew which day to meet. The crafty thing, Dalton said, was the picture on the postcard. Maybe it would be a fountain or a chapel or some other monument. But the cross streets of the monument were the important part. That would be where he would go to alert the Soviets that he had arrived.

Dalton kept going. Then, when I get to Mexico City, I have to tape an X on a lamp post or a wall or a tree at a predetermined location. Then they will contact me. To Chris, the security features and the failures at TRW had been commonplace. But Dalton's descriptions of his espionage lifestyle seemed wild. As he listened to the stories, he counted and recounted the $1,500 that Dalton had given him. It was even wilder that they had pulled it off and were set to do it again. They settled into an evening of drinking and smoking,

and they joked like they were old schoolboys again. On the surface, they both seemed to be laughing off the gravity of what they were doing. But that gravity was not lost on Chris Boyce. He thought about his job and his future. He thought about his new girlfriend, his father, who had secured him the job at TRW, and all the other family members and friends he was lying to. He had only taken the job at TRW to save money to go back to college. but now he had a strong feeling that he had taken a turn down a road that was going to lead

somewhere very different. As the summer went on, Dalton became adept at his maneuvers in Mexico City. He subtly left his ex marked in Painter's tape at an agreed location and then waited. One way or another, the Soviets contacted him. Sometimes Okana simply found Dalton in a crowd, took the goods off him, and gave him a time and a place to meet the following day. Other times, a discrete vehicle stopped on the street and Okana ushered Dalton inside. The car wove through the streets and alleys in an effort to evade anyone who might be following. Finally, they stopped in a desolate part of town or a park after nightfall and completed their business. Maybe it was Dalton's carefree demeanor, or maybe it was the congenial manner of the KGB handlers,

but Dalton rarely worried that these long drives might end poorly for him. On one trip near the end of the summer, one of the drives took an interesting turn. Dalton found himself in the backseat of a long black sedan, wedged in between Okana and another man who had been introduced simply as Karpov. Dalton rambled about a girl he had met recently and their drug-addled exploits when Karpov interrupted. Mr. Lee, he said, get on the floor out of sight. Before Dalton could protest, Karpov followed with, do it now please. Dalton slid down to the floor of the sedan and stretched himself out over the

feet of the two men. He was on his back, looking up, and found himself unusually fearful and incapable of looking at either man. The car didn't drive for long. It came to a stop on a well-lit street, which calmed Dalton to a degree. But then he heard the sound of a metal gate opening. The sedan lurched forward, and Dalton heard the gate closing, behind them. After the car rolled forward no more than 50 feet, it came to a stop. Karpov looked down at Dalton. He was smiling. We have arrived, he said, as he opened the car door and stepped out. Dalton sat up, hoisted himself out of the vehicle, and felt an immediate sense of relief. They were at the embassy, which surprised Dalton. He thought he was never

supposed to come back. Okana said they needed a little more time to look at the batch of documents, that Dalton delivered. He thought Dalton might be more comfortable here. Dalton was escorted into a sparsely furnished room with a long table and a lamp hanging over it. It was what Dalton thought an interrogation room might look like. But before fear could grip him, an attendant entered with vodka and caviar.

It seemed like the party was underway. While they drank, others joined them. Soon, Dalton was fielding questions and requests from all directions. He had to slow down on the vodka so that he could write straight as he transcribed the questions. They asked where exactly his friend worked and what projects he could access. They wanted schematics and instruction manuals for any and all satellites. They wanted lists of components and names of people who worked on the projects. More than anything, they harped on the need for the frequencies of the KW7 machines

that sent and received coated transmissions. When they all took a break to open a new bottle of vodka, O'Conna slid an envelope to Dalton that had in it well over $5,000 in $100 bills. Dalton smiled. O'Conna made it clear. The transmission frequencies of the encryption machines would be worth much, much more.

With their glasses filled, they toasted, as it become their custom, to peace. After they downed their spirits, Okana leaned into Dalton and said, There is something else that we would pay very well for. Clenching the envelope of cash under the table, Dalton said, Well, let me know, comrade, and I'll make it happen. The Russian replied, we want the name of your friend. Next time on Infamous America, the secrets keep coming and the money keeps flowing.

But the stress of Chris and Dalton's deception begins to wear on both of them. Greed and a lack of trust leads to bad decisions, and the long-time friendship is put to the test. That's next week on Infamous America. Members of our Black Barrel Plus program don't have to wait week to week for new episodes. They receive the entire season to binge all at once with no commercials, and they also receive exclusive bonus episodes. Sign up now through the link in the show notes or on our website, blackbarrelmedia.com. Memberships begin at just $5 per month. This series was researched and written by Jamie Leiko, original music by Rob Ville.

I'm your host and producer, Chris Wimmer. Find us at our website, blackbarrelmedia.com, or on our social media channels. We're Black Barrel Media on Facebook and Instagram and B-Barrell Media on Twitter. And you can stream all our episodes on YouTube. Just search for Infamous America Podcast. Thanks for listening. Thank you.