Infamous America - SPIES LIKE US Ep. 4 | “Spycraft”

Episode Date: December 7, 2022

Everything escalates. The Russians send Daulton Lee to Europe for a crash course in spycraft; Chris Boyce receives new, high-tech methods for gathering and transferring stolen secrets; and the relationship between Chris and Daulton fractures. Chris decides to take an unprecedented step: he meets with the Russians in person. 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

As summer became fall in 1975, Dalton Lee traveled routinely between Southern California and Mexico City. While the warrant for his arrest forced him to live a rather covert life in the states, he could have lots of fun south of the border. He was still in the drug business, and that continued to provide a healthy revenue stream. Add to that, the cash from his dealings with the Soviets, and Dalton was able to afford resort hotels, dinners with expensive wine, and nights out in Mexico City's best clubs.

By comparison, Chris Boyce's routine at his employer, Thompson-Rameau-Wildridge, remained far more mundane. On one of those seemingly mundane days, a call came into the black vault for Chris to come up to a conference room for an impromptu meeting. When he arrived at the conference room, he discovered that the meeting was with the CIA, with a director of classified information for the Western U.S.

Chris sat down. The man said his name was Ray, and there was something he wanted to discuss. The man slid a Manila folder across the table. Chris was supposed to reach for it, but his arm felt paralyzed. What would he find if he opened the folder? He pictured spy stuff from the movies. There would be black and white photos of Dalton with the KGB in Mexico City, A list of all the stuff Chris had taken from the black vault, and who knew what else.

Everything he imagined led him to one conclusion. He and Dalton had been caught. Then Ray said, We need people experienced with handling and delivering these top secret transmissions. We need people who have good records and no red flags. They have to have displayed absolute discretion in their current positions. Chris opened the folder to find his personnel file. He could barely keep a straight face.

Ray went on. Now, the job isn't perfect. It has its entry-level hurdles, long, sometimes multi-day shifts, limited time off. And when you do get time off, you'll be 70 miles from the nearest city. But that city does happen to be Las Vegas.

And if you perform well, the CIA offers different paths for advancement. Ray was making a well-rehearsed sales pitch to convince Chris to join the CIA. Ray wrapped it up. So what do you say? Chris, would you like to join the intelligence community? Chris struggled to keep himself from smiling.

Out loud, he said, he would think about the job. In his head, he said, Ray, I've been part of the intelligence community for a while now. Just not yours. From Black Barrel Media, this is Infamous America. I'm your host, Chris Wimmer. And 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 four, Spycraft. Chris Boyce was furious. He paced back and forth in his apartment in Redondo Beach. He and Dalton were discussing their operation, and Chris wasn't pleased with what he was hearing. Down in Mexico, while Dalton was drunk and high, he had talked about the KW7 machines with his Soviet handlers. Those were the machines in the black vault that handled the intelligence transmissions. They operated on frequencies that were some of the most closely guarded secrets

at TRW. The frequencies were stored in another part of TRW, and Chris couldn't access them. He repeatedly and emphatically told Dalton not to talk about the frequencies. Chris knew the Russians would want the frequencies and he didn't want Dalton to offer something that he couldn't deliver. But Dalton had done it anyway.

Dalton implored his friend to find a way to make it work. The Soviets were fixated on the frequencies. They had to have them. Chris argued that the Russians would take anything they could get. They would just have to be satisfied with the stuff that Chris could provide. And Chris's frustration wasn't limited to the issue with the frequencies. He had a long list of frustrations. Dalton's increased drug use was a problem.

But that was a bit of a slippery slope. As they argued in Chris's apartment, both young men were drinking steadily. And Chris had been drinking most of the day. He drank at work, he drank at happy hour, and now he was drinking with Dalton. So it was hard to hurl accusations at Dalton when Chris wasn't a model of sobriety. But those were two big items on Chris's list of grievances. Dalton promised too much to the Russians, and he was using too many drugs. Next, Dalton had boasted to his younger brother, David, about the reasons for his additional

trips to Mexico. David was a great kid, but Chris knew David put Dalton on a pedestal. That was only natural. David was a teenager, and Dalton was 23 years old. Dalton seemed to live an amazing life. He flew down to Mexico all the time. He had wads of $100 bills, and he just bought a flashy Corvette that he paid for with cash. But could David keep a secret of this size?

If David thought his big brother was an international spy, could he really keep that information to himself? Wasn't that the perfect thing he would want to brag about to his friends? Chris was worried. And then there was this story, which Chris heard while sitting by Dalton's pool. A young woman from Palos Verdes recounted a trip to Mexico while she sipped a frozen margarita. She had gone with a guy down to a resort where they had eaten like kings and queens. They had enjoyed the beaches and really enjoyed the nightlife. But they had also traveled to Mexico City, where the guy kept disappearing on business.

She spent that time in the hotel. She was bored, but at least the hotel was expensive. The guy in question, of course, was Dalton. It appeared he was now taking dates down to Mexico while he was delivering top secret information to the Russians and organizing drug shipments. He was breaking about a thousand laws, and Chris marveled yet again at how the hell they hadn't been caught. And then there was the money. Chris wasn't convinced that he was receiving an equal share of the profits from their deals with the Russians. For Chris, it wasn't about the actual money, it was about the principle of

it. Chris wasn't stealing information and selling it so that he could get rich. For him, there was a moral component. He had been moved to take action by the hypocrisy he believed he saw in American institutions. Dalton could have rationalized the uneven split any number of ways, but Chris knew the real reason. Dalton was putting almost all of his money into his drug operation. Dalton was spending more time in Mexico than the U.S., so Chris wasn't sure how Dalton was. was able to keep his business running smoothly, but clearly he was making it work. Chris's trust in his friend was waning. He knew that if Dalton got caught, he probably would too. Chris resigned himself to that reality. He never thought this would go on forever. He didn't like to

think about it, but he knew the truth. Someday, TRW would catch him smuggling materials off the campus. Or American agents would catch Dalton on his way to or from Mexico. or the Federalis would catch Dalton in Mexico or a dozen other scenarios could play out. And there was yet more on the list. Dalton confessed that he had opened his mouth more than usual during a recent meeting with the Russians. The Russian agents had pressed him

and after quite a bit of wine and cocaine, Dalton had started telling them about Chris. The Soviets knew the company Chris worked for and the types of information that crossed his desk. They knew he sent the end of the United States. information to CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. And they must have known at least one piece of personal information about Chris, as would become clear. The Russians didn't know his last name, and just referred to him as Christobal. And then, according to a biographer of the two young spies,

the KGB came up with a code name for Chris. They called him the Falcon. Dalton sat with his Russian contact in a restaurant in Mexico City, a few miles from the Soviet embassy. It was another routine trip. Dalton delivered cipher cards to decode secret communications and photocopies of schematics for spy satellites. He received an envelope full of cash that he felt probably had $5,000 in it. Dalton probably felt good about another successful trip, but then the Russian expressed concern.

Your friend is being too risky, the Russian said. He was Vasily Ivanovich Okana, a KGB agent and Dalton's primary handler in Mexico. We worry, O'Connor continued, that having to leave his employer with these cards and all of his paperwork will one day be his falling down. Dalton snickered whenever the Soviets tried to use American expressions. His downfall, Dalton asked.

O'Conna wasn't in the move for jokes. He needed to teach the American another lesson in spycraft. O'Connor reached into his pocket and produced a slim, silver, rectangular object that was about half the size of a fancy ballpoint pen. He rolled it over in his hand like a gambler might with a poker chip. He said it was a camera with a very specialized purpose. He said Chris should buy one. It would cost about $100. Chris should use it to take pictures of transmissions and cipher cards rather than run the risk of smuggling them out of TRW.

Dalton would discover that the camera was a Minox B, a sub-miniature spy camera that would become an artifact synonymous with the Cold War. The tiny camera contained a powerful lens and a cartridge that could capture up to 50 images. It produced high-quality negatives than an experienced photographer could turn into crystal-clear photos. Dalton studied the camera and felt its weight in the palm of his hand. He knew he had to go shopping for a gift for Chris when he got back to the States. Predictably, after Dalton found a Minox B in a Palos Verdes jewelry store, he felt he needed to test it, and he organized a pool-side photo shoot with some local college girls. When he finally presented the camera to Chris,

Dalton dangled it in front of him on a short silver chain attached to the end of the tiny spy camera. Dalton explained the new plan of photographing the top secret goods instead of removing them, and Chris saw the logic in it. But he also laughed. Security at TRW was so light, how much easier did it really need to be to steal from them. Either way, they both agreed that transporting tiny negatives in a device that was about the size of a pack of gum was much less risky for Dalton. So, the following week, Chris took the camera on its maiden. voyage to the Black Vault. It was another reminder that this spy stuff wasn't as easy as it

looked in the movies. He fumbled with the camera. Its dials for aperture and exposure were barely bigger than the head of a nail. The tiny viewfinder made it nearly impossible to quickly line up an image, slide the camera body in and out to take the photo, and then stow it back in his shirt pocket. Chris had practiced at home and in his office, but he was far from master's it. And there was no way to check his work, so he just had to hope he had used it correctly. He gave the camera to Dalton, and Dalton spent his whole next flight to Mexico City, daydreaming of the payday from the first set of photos. He handed the negatives over to Okana with a cockiness that was rare even for Dalton. He was sure O'Connor's superiors would love

the pictures, but the reaction was not what he hoped for. When O'Connor showed the photos to Dalton, O'Connor was angry. The stack of Kodak photo paper showed nothing but gray blurs. Chris hadn't captured a single usable image of the top secret intelligence in the black vault. But that wasn't the worst part. The camera contained negatives of naked women. O'Connor raised his voice, Is this some sort of joke by your friend?

Dalton panicked. Had the images from his poolside photo shoot with the college girls made their way into Chris's photos from the point. Black Vault. This time, Dalton was innocent. When Chris was practicing with the camera, he took photos of the penthouse magazine centerfolds that his co-worker Gene had taped to his workspace. Unfortunately, those were the only images that were even slightly legible. The rest were useless. Dalton made assurances. His friend would master the camera. Dalton promised to push his friend to get better intel for the next trip. On his first,

flight home, Dalton put a serious dent in the liquor cart. He had hoped to leave Mexico City with his best payday yet, but now he was just relieved to be leaving in one piece. Chris shouted his surprise. Dalton told his friend to keep his voice down. Yes, the Soviets wanted Dalton to travel to Vienna, Austria. They intended to put Dalton through a three-day crash course in all things espionage, and there was less risk of being watched in Vienna than Mexico City. Chris pushed back. He said a trip like that would draw more attention, not less. And Dalton drew attention everywhere he went. The Vienna idea was the result of the first failed attempt to take photos of the secret material in the black vault. Dalton had flown back to the U.S. and explained the problem, and Chris had done better on the next

couple attempts. But the results still weren't good enough for the Russians. Now they wanted to train Dalton so that he could train Chris. Chris was frustrated with Dalton, but he eventually gave in. He had grown to accept the fact that Dalton's antics would eventually get them caught. But recently, his belief that they should continue their operation was reinforced by things he had read in the secret communications. The problems that had pushed Chris to start selling information were centered on Australia. The U.S. had a facility called Pine Gap in the Australian Outback. That facility sent messages to the Black Vault, and Chris passed them along to the CIA.

Australian Prime Minister Gough Whitlam had been questioning the American presence in the outback. Eventually, he was replaced by a Prime Minister who asked fewer questions and seemed to be more deferential. The transmissions that flowed through the Black Vault showed a significant sense. CIA presence during the fiasco. To Chris, it appeared his government had subverted election results and participated in a coup d'etat. That was all the inspiration he needed to put together more material for Dalton's trip. In the spring of 1976, Dalton flew from Los Angeles to London to Frankfurt, Germany, to Vienna, Austria. As he entered the country, he told customs agents that he was an art dealer. In this case, he was a lot of the country. In this case, he was a lot of

his art was cipher cards, messages between Australia and CIA headquarters, and plans for a new satellite system. After settling in, Dalton went to a large park in the city center where he was eventually met by a new handler who called himself Boris. Boris escorted him to a car, and they drove to what Dalton was told was a KGB safe house on the outskirts of Vienna. While Dalton missed his regular handler, O'Connor, he already liked Boris. Boris was more mellow. He wore contemporary clothes instead of stuffy suits, and he seemed like he knew how to have a good time. And while the next few days were filled with good food and ice-cold vodka, the Soviets were serious when they had told Dalton they would give him a crash course in Spycraft. He was schooled in moving through crowds without

drawing attention, and how to be more observant in public, and how to notice if people were following him. But the most time was spent on how to maximize the Minox B spy camera. A KGB photographer walked Dalton through the features of the camera and how it worked. Dalton learned how to quickly and accurately take photos. He learned the developing process to transform negatives into usable images. Again and again, they drilled until the spy in training got it right. Dalton was fascinated to learn that the silver chain attached to the camera was actually there as a reference. Its length was the exact distance that a person needed to hold the camera from the object that was being photographed. In the evenings, as Dalton and the Russians drank, Dalton fielded the usual

questions about information Chris could access. As always, Dalton made big promises and was all too eager to negotiate the price for Intel he couldn't be sure he could get. He was also glad for the chance to talk to the Soviets about his other business, the drug business. The Russians had no intention of jeopardizing their source of secret information by working with Dalton to smuggle drugs, but they humored him and told him what he wanted to hear. Dalton and Chris had been selling secrets to the Russians for a year now. Dalton made multiple trips to Mexico, and now he sat in a Soviet safe house in Austria. And of all the things that could have gone wrong over that year,

and of all of the international agencies that could have arrested Dalton, it was the local law in Los Angeles that triggered the crisis for the two childhood friends. Chris's frustration had been steadily rising since he found out that Dalton told his younger brother about their super secret, illegal, probably treasonous spy operation. And that Dalton sometimes took women down to Mexico on trips to meet the Russians with the information that Chris was stealing from his employers. And that Dalton was using those trips to Mexico to continue to improve his long-time drug smuggling business.

And that Dalton took a fellow drug dealer on one of those trips. It seemed Dalton was partying in Mexico far more than doing his job, as a discreet courier. Chris also heard stories that Dalton was now bragging that he worked for the CIA. The endless indiscretions and the obvious fact

that Dalton's drug use was rising even faster than Chris's level of frustration pushed Chris's paranoia to its peak in the summer and fall of 1976. All of that prompted Chris to take a new step in the operation. He was now communicating directly with the Russians

and keeping it secret, from Dalton. At times during the summer and fall of 1976, Chris included coded messages within the materials that he packaged for Dalton. The messages were simple substitution ciphers. They were easy for a KGB agent to pick up on, but mundane enough for Dalton to miss. The messages were simple and direct. Chris wanted to meet the Soviets himself. He was curious about how much money they had paid Dalton. He expressed his concern that Dalton was no longer reliable. Most of the messages went unanswered,

but there has always been speculation that at least one message did reach Chris. It was a confirmation that Dalton had not been splitting the money equally between himself and Chris. So now, Chris needed to decide how far he was willing to go. And while he thought about his next move, Dalton continued to panic about his situation,

in Los Angeles. That summer, the summer of 1976, he was back in court. This time it wasn't for drugs, which was a small miracle. For nearly a year, there had been a warrant out for his arrest because he had skipped a court date that was for drug charges. On top of that, he had also spent a year avoiding the L.A. County Sheriff's Department. He had avoided jail time after that drug arrest by agreeing to be an informant. but then he started working with Chris on international espionage, and he stonewalled the sheriffs.

But all of that was relatively mild compared to the charges he now faced. Several months earlier, during the holidays of 1975, he ended up in a late-night, high-speed police chase through Palos Verdes. It had ended with a wrecked police car, an injured officer, and a heap of charges leveled against Dalton, reckless driving, drunk driving, driving, driving under the influence of a controlled substance, driving with a fake license, and of course, being a fugitive. He had borrowed money from Chris to make bail. His attorney had gotten his court date pushed back by claiming that Dalton needed a mental evaluation. Obviously, that evaluation never happened.

And by the fall of 1976, Dalton worried that even he might be running out of good luck with the California justice system. With his drug use and desperation skyrocketing, he dreamed of making one score and then disappearing. But his legal problems meant that that score probably wouldn't come from the drug business. At this point, with this much heat on him, his ability to move significant amounts of heroin,

cocaine, and even marijuana, was almost impossible. His only option was to take the next batch of information from Chris and try to squeeze the Russians for more money than they had ever paid. On the trip to Mexico City that fall of 1976, Dalton learned that Boris, his new Soviet handler, had his limits. Boris was relatively laid back and hospitable, but there was a point at which he would no longer laugh off Dalton's embellished swagger and cockiness.

The meeting started routinely enough. Boris picked Dalton up and spirited him discreetly to the embassy. A party was in full swing, so Dalton was ushered downstairs into one of the dark, poorly furnished conference rooms. He turned over his materials from Chris and boasted that this batch was easily worth $50,000. He knew when he said it that it sounded ridiculous, but he was desperate. This time, the Soviets didn't laugh at Dalton's antics. They weren't pleased with what he had delivered, and they said so. They pressed him for the frequencies to the coded communication machines.

Dalton was more than an amusing delivery boy to them now. He was an investment, and they weren't seeing their return. Dalton lashed out and made a threat. If the KGB didn't want his intelligence, maybe he would go to the Chinese. The mood in the room changed instantly. Boris stared at Dalton. He slowly, calmly reached into his jacket, and pulled a 9-millimeter pistol from a shoulder holster.

After pausing for just a second, to make sure he had Dalton's attention, Boris placed the pistol on the table. He asked Dalton if he carried a gun. Dalton said he did not. Boris said flatly, perhaps you should. Perhaps you should be more careful.

Dalton changed his tune. He said he would continue to press his friend Chris, nicknamed Crystal Ball, codenamed the Falcon for the first. frequencies. For the second time, Dalton was glad to leave Mexico City in one piece. That fall, while Dalton dealt with his legal battles and tried to repair any damage he had done with the Soviets, Chris's downward spiral continued. His drinking escalated. His relationship with his girlfriend, Lana, fell apart and he asked her to move out. Somehow, despite his drinking, his illegal activities,

and his anxiety, he continued to impress his bosses at work. They offered him a promotion, one that provided a fresh start in Colorado. But Chris had enough self-awareness to know that even the most minimal security questions could make him snap. There was no way he would pass the position's required lie detector test. So he turned it down, just like he had turned down the offer from the CIA to join the team outside Las Vegas. Those were two opportunities that might have allowed him to get out of his illegal operation without anyone knowing. But instead, Chris took a giant leap forward in his espionage plan. He decided it was time to meet the Russians himself.

In September 1976, without telling Dalton, Chris booked a flight to Mexico City and surprised his friend at Dalton's luxury hotel. Dalton did his best to give Chris the Dalton tour of the city while he tried to make contact with the Soviets. But it was clear to Chris that Dalton did not want him there. They filled up on tequila and drugs and pretended they were just two pals partying in a foreign paradise. But the party and the friendship was dying.

Chris wasn't surprised when Dalton told him that the Soviets had not responded to his requests for a meeting. Chris said it was no problem, and the two distrusting friends returned to the U.S. together. When the cab from L.A.X dropped Chris off in Redondo Beach, he got out of the car and casually said to Dalton, next month, I'll come with you for the drop. Dalton faked enthusiasm and said that sounded like a great idea.

There was nothing else he could do. In October, after more than a year of smuggling American secrets out of TRW, Chris Boyce finally met the Soviets. He and Dalton arrived in Mexico City, and shortly after Dalton made contact, they were picked up in a black car and taken to the embassy. Once inside, Chris got the full treatment. There was plenty of food and vodka. While Chris worried that he wouldn't be able to keep up, Dalton had so much cocaine coursing through his veins that he didn't have a worry in the world. They toasted repeatedly to Chris, and now he made his new comrades proud. His devotion to the communist cause, his devotion to Mother Russia would not be forgotten.

Chris sipped his vodka and fumed silently. Their myopic nationalism was as bad as his own countries. His disdain for the machinations of the security community didn't stop at the U.S. borders. Eventually they got down to business, and eventually the conversation turned to the Soviet's desire for the frequencies for the KW7 machines. Chris told them directly, I can't get them, I don't have access. Dalton tried to interject, but one of Boris's superior silenced him with a raised hand. Dalton was finally caught in his lie.

From that point forward, the Soviets spoke only to Chris. They told him to write down the names of his co-workers, their descriptions, and job assignments. Chris complied, but he limited the information. He had chosen to steal from TRW. He didn't want the Russians to bribe or blackmail his co-workers into doing the same thing. Meanwhile, Dalton's anger grew. He felt pushed aside, and the drugs and alcohol only heightened his intensity. Dalton lashed out at the Soviets, and his ravings grew more and more incoherent.

At one point, Boris suggested that Dalton step out of the room and clear his head. Dalton refused and continued to rant. Then Boris insisted. With Dalton out of the room, the interaction between the Soviets and Chris was much less hostile. They wanted to be certain that Chris really could not access the frequencies from his current position. He confirmed it. The frequencies were delivered to a separate location. In light of that, the Soviets suggested that Chris joined the CIA or get a job somewhere else in the U.S. government.

They even offered to pay for a government. him to return to college if he pursued degrees in international affairs and the Russian language. Chris was actually intrigued. As the evening wound down, tempers between Dalton and the Russians wound down as well. The meeting ended in the early hours of the following morning, with vodka flowing to the very end. Chris left the Soviets believing he would take them up on their offer to bankroll his education, and both he and Dalton left with envelope. of money. But the heated feelings between Chris and Dalton persisted. Dalton was furious at how Chris took over the meeting. Chris had exhausted his patience with his drug-addicted friend. He challenged

Dalton about the disparity over the money, the persistent lies about Chris's actual access, and the real chance that Dalton's mouth would get them caught or worse. They sat in near silence on the plane back to Los Angeles. The only exchange was a declaration that Chris was going to get out. He was going to quit TRW. He would prepare one more parcel and Dalton could make one last delivery to the Russians. Then that was it. They were done. But that delivery never happened. By the first week of January 1977, the spy games of Chris Boyce and Dalton Lee would come to a crashing end. Next time on infamous America, Chris and Dalton's operation reaches the end of its road. Faced with terrible consequences, the two childhood friends

turn on each other. 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 just $5 per month. This series was researched and written by Jamie Leiko, original music by Rob Valier. I'm your host and producer, Chris Wimmer. Find us at our website, blackbarrelmedia.com, or on our social media channels.

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