Infamous America - SPIES LIKE US Ep. 5 | “Espionage and Treason”

Episode Date: December 14, 2022

Chris Boyce and Daulton Lee spiral out of control. They don’t trust each other, and then Daulton’s nightmare scenario happens. He gets arrested by Mexican police and interrogated in a secret facility. The FBI gets involved, and the plan comes crashing down. Chris and Daulton are arrested and put on trial for some of the most serious crimes in American history. 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

On January 15, 1978, an encrypted message came across the teletype machine at the office of Clarence Kelly, director of the FBI. It was from the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City, and it read, Subject Dalton Lee interviewed between 709 p.m. and 939 p.m. January 14th at Mexican Federal Service H.Q. in Mexico City. Lee waived Miranda rights. Lee expressed a desire to cooperate. However, he seemed evasive and his answers did not inspire confidence in his complete truthfulness.

Lee made the following admissions. He has known the subject, Christopher Boyce, for 10 years. They attended high school together in Palos Verdes, California. Their activities regarding the Soviets began in the summer of 1975. Delivery to Soviets of various documents in California, including KW7 crypto cards, documents pertaining to communication satellites, and other top-secret documents and photographs. Throughout the interview, Lee maintained that he had done nothing wrong during any of his dealings with the Soviets because he understood, through discussions with Boyce, that he was a subcontractor for the CIA.

They were disseminating false and misleading information to the Soviets. What wasn't in the encrypted message to Quantico was that when Dalton Lee gave this account to FBI agents in Mexico, he had already been in the custody of the Mexican Federalis for more than a week. It also didn't say Dalton had been tortured and charged with murder. It couldn't begin to foreshadow the storm that was about to befall two young men in the South Bay of Los Angeles for the terrible decisions they had made. Within hours of the message arriving on the FBI director's desk, it landed on the desk of President-elect Jimmy Carter. Within days, the arrest of the one-time friends would be on the front page of newspapers around the world.

Over the coming weeks and months, the nation and the world would follow the trials of Christopher J. Boyce and Andrew Dalton Lee. They would be charged with conspiracy, espionage, and treason, a capital offense that could warrant the death penalty. 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 five, espionage and treason. In late November of 1977, Chris Boyce put in his resignation at Thompson-Rameau Woldridge. At the same time, he applied to and was accepted to the University of California at Riverside. His co-workers decorated the Black Vault for Christmas on his last day, December 17th.

They gave him a proper send-off at one of their favorite local bars. The final note in his employee file read that Chris Boyce had been conscientious and dependable. He had been an asset to the company and was definitely eligible for rehire. Starting in January, Chris would be a full-time college student again, studying political science, history, and Russian. No one at TRW knew it, but Chris's change wasn't about a genuine desire to finish his education. He had accepted a deal from the Russians. They would pay for college as long as he studied the right subjects, and it would put him on the path toward joining an agency like the CIA,

where he could provide them with even better top-secret information. information. While Chris celebrated the new phase of his life, Dalton was thankful just to be alive. Dalton had made a trip to Mexico in November that had gone horribly. He had gone directly to the Soviet embassy and was rebuffed. He threw a tantrum full of empty but ill-advised threats. The next thing he knew, he was grabbed, stashed in a car, and driven to a vacant part of the city. The KGB agents with him in the backseat said nothing. on the drive. But when they shoved Dalton out of the moving car and onto a patch of gravel, their message was clear. Watch your mouth and stay away from the embassy. Back in Palos Verdes,

Dalton was then arrested, again, during a traffic violation just after the new year. By the time he posted bail, he had missed his scheduled January rendezvous in Mexico City. Dalton was in dire need of cash, and he had one last parcel of satellite documents that Chris had grabbed before his final day. So he bought a plane ticket and flew to Mexico City. He arrived on the morning of January 6, 1978. He loitered in a spot where he hoped the Russians would see him and make contact, but they didn't. He was late, and he couldn't be certain that they wanted to see him at all. So Dalton made the decision that led to his downfall.

He returned to the Soviet. embassy. For hours, Dalton watched the building from down the avenue. No cars left and no one entered. Except for someone who briefly looked past a curtain, the embassy was motionless. But Dalton was not willing to accept that they were closed for business. He lingered, pacing near the gates. Finally, a car pulled up. Dalton sprinted to the car and just barely caught a glimpse of one of the passengers. It was Boris, his KGB handler. Dalton shouted, but Boris completely ignored him. Dalton's desperation turned to rage. He allegedly scribbled the letters KGB on the cover of a Spanish English dictionary and tossed it over the metal fence. A guard approached the gate and sternly told

him to leave. But Dalton persisted. Just then, a Mexican police car pulled up. An officer stepped out. with his hand on his gun and told Dalton not to move. Another police car arrived and then another. Dalton began to walk away, dropping things from his pockets and stashing his illegal materials deep in his coat pocket. The officer surrounded him. Immediately Dalton pleaded his case. He was a tourist who was visiting a friend and they had gotten separated.

He was just lost. One of the officers questioned him about what he had thrown over the fence. but when they all looked through, the dictionary was gone. The guard at the gate had grabbed it, and he wasn't giving it back. The Mexican police didn't want to risk an international incident with the Russians, so they let that part go. They searched Dalton. Along with his wallet and passport,

the police found the fake postcard that the Russians used to tell him where to meet. Then the police found the photo negatives of the information that Chris had stolen from the black vault. Dalton tried to explain by saying that he was in the advertising business, and the pictures were for his job. For the time being, the police believed him. Unfortunately, he had no explanation for the half-smoked joint the officers had seen him throw on the sidewalk. They began to put him in the back of a police car. Just then, out of sheer coincidence, a U.S. State Department employee was leaving the Soviet embassy. As she walked to her car, she went.

witnessed the scene outside the gate. She heard Dalton's pleas to the police. She asked the police why they were detaining an American citizen. Dalton begged the U.S. diplomat for help. He didn't want to disappear into a Mexican jail. The diplomat had a phone in her car, and she called for assistance. The embassy immediately sent over a lawyer and a CIA agent. While Dalton waited, the American officials and the Mexican authorities discussed his fate. All the while, the Russians watched from inside the gate. The lead police officer kept pointing at the postcard and the negatives and then back at Dalton. The American diplomat nodded.

The usually impulsive Dalton did something he rarely did. He kept his mouth shut. After 20 agonizing minutes, the huddle broke. The Americans returned to their cars. The diplomat gave Dalton one last look, and the Mexican police took Dalton into custody. On January 12th, six days after Dalton was arrested in Mexico, employees at TRW in Los Angeles arrived at work

and were stopped in the lobby by their security staff and FBI agents. The Black Vault, the hub for top secret transmissions and Chris Boyce's workspace until two months ago, was closed until further notice. The 10 or so people who worked in the vault were probably worried that their days of partying on the job were over, and they would be in the near future. But that wasn't the problem right now.

They soon found out that there had been a major security breach. Top secret documents relating to spy satellite programs, encryption cards, and the covert transmissions had been taken out of the building. And the rumor was they had been sold to the Soviet Union. The name on everyone's lips was Chris Boyce. As it turned out, a great deal had happened since the Mexican police had arrested Dalton in front of the Soviet embassy six days earlier. The police took Dalton to headquarters and handcuffed him to an interrogation table.

They took a closer look at the photo negatives and realized they were marked top secret. Once they developed the negatives, they realized they were photos of schematics for what appeared to be a satellite. They grilled Dalton about who he was and why he was really in Mexico City. Terrified, Dalton made every excuse he could. He pleaded to speak to an American. But when the investigators brought up the postcard, the problem clicked into place. Dalton knew no one was coming to help him, and he was in far more trouble than he realized. The Russians used a simple system to communicate with Dalton. When it was time for a meeting, they sent him a postcard with some sort of monument on it. Dalton would go to the cross streets of the monument

in Mexico City, make a mark on something nearby, and then wait for further instructions. This time, the cross streets on the postcard took Dalton to a place where a Mexican police officer had been gunned down in broad daylight a week earlier. The cops believed the shooter was linked to a militant communist organization, and they now believed Dalton was working with the organization and the Soviet government and that he was the shooter. Dalton denied everything and quickly came clean about what was actually going on. He told them that he was trading in military secrets that were stolen by a friend in Southern California who worked for a company that had contracts with the U.S. Department of Defense.

Dalton said he was mostly just a drug dealer who played spy games to fund his cocaine and heroin deals. He knew nothing of militant groups and a political murder. The investigators all but laughed. This American was claiming that he was some sort of rogue spy and a drug dealer at the same time. That story was less believable than all his other excuses combined. Dalton begged them to call the U.S. Embassy or the Federal Bureau of Security, the Mexican equivalent of the FBI. The cops didn't neither. They were out of patience with Dalton Lee. They tied a blindfold over his eyes, stuffed him in a car, and drove him to an undisclosed location. For the next eight days, Dalton endured grueling and violent interrogations. The Mexican authorities were convinced

he was a Soviet operative who wanted to overthrow their government and had killed one of their own. Dalton was deprived of sleep, food, and clean water. He was beaten repeatedly, and his head was held under the contents of a filthy toilet. He was promised that if he didn't confess, he was promised that if he didn't confess, he would be killed in one of a dozen terrible ways, and his family would never find his body. Dalton refused to admit to crimes he didn't commit, but he repeatedly admitted to the crimes that he did commit. Finally, on January 14th, Dalton was allowed to talk to an American. Two agents from the FBI sat with, with Dalton in a dark basement, and they didn't seem to have any problem with how he was treated.

But they promised to take Dalton home. All he had to do was give up the rights that people normally have when they're arrested and give a written statement. Then he could have a shower and a hot meal, and he'd be back in the U.S. in a few days. Dalton agreed. In his statement, he went all the way back to his childhood when he and Chris Boyce had been altar boys together in Palos Verdes. Two and a half hours later, the FBI agents had the confirmation they wanted. Unbeknownst to Dalton, they had been watching Chris for more than a week. The Mexican authorities had shared the information that was found on Dalton's photo negatives.

The FBI agents had shut down the Black Vault at TRW. While the FBI was taking Dalton's statement, Chris was out in the wilderness with his birds, enjoying a relaxing time that he didn't know would be his last. for a long while. Two days later, as federal agents escorted Dalton back into the U.S., Chris Boyce, known as Cristobal to the Russians and codenamed the Falcon, was arrested. Chris had been renting a guest house on a ranch not far from UC Riverside, where he would

be starting classes when the spring semester began. In mid-January, he and a fellow Falconer headed west towards Mount San Jacinto with their birds in tow. If Chris had stayed closer to home, he might have received a call from people in Palos Verdes who had been visited by the FBI. One of his co-workers might have called him after the FBI swarmed the black fault. But in 1978, without cell phones or pagers, Chris was out of reach. Still, he felt in his gut that something was wrong. He hadn't heard anything from Dalton since Dalton arrived in Mexico with the final shipment of top-secret intelligence. When Chris contacted a friend at Dalton's usual hotel in Mexico City, there was no record of Dalton checking in. Chris assumed

something was wrong. Had Dalton been captured, had his mouth finally caught up with him, was he already dead? But even with his suspicions, Chris never thought about running. So on January 16th, When he and his friend returned to the ranch after their falconry trip, Chris Boyce was not surprised when his car was surrounded by FBI agents with their weapons drawn. Chris exited his vehicle slowly, raised his arms, and identified himself. The agents pushed him to the ground and slapped handcuffs on him. A few cursed at him and called him a traitor. Chris didn't struggle.

His rights were read. He said he understood them and he only asked that no harm would come to his birth. By early afternoon, Chris was alone in an FBI office in the federal building on Wilshire Boulevard on the west side of Los Angeles. The agents told him that the FBI had been to his home in Palos Verdes. His father was in shock. They also told him that reporters were already hounding his family for information, and it was only going to get worse.

The sooner he told his story to the feds, the sooner they could help him. repeatedly, Chris refused to go into detail about the stuff he had taken from TRW. Then, as the sun set, Chris told one of the agents that he would talk. But before he did, he wanted to know one thing. Was he the only person being charged with anything for the stolen documents? The agent paused. He knew he shouldn't share information, but he thought it might encourage Chris to explain everything. The agent revealed that Dalton was arrested in Mexico.

he was being returned to the U.S., and he had been charged with espionage and treason. Chris took a deep breath. His friend was alive. Their friendship had been strained lately to say the least, but that didn't mean Chris wanted Dalton to die at the hands of the Russians. With that, Chris recounted the shorthand version of everything that had happened in the last year and a half. He explained displeasure with the government and especially with the intelligence community. He focused on the government's interference with other countries, especially their ally, Australia. He went on at length about the lack of security at TRW.

He outlined how he smuggled the secrets out, and how, to the best of his knowledge, his friend Dalton passed them on to the Soviets. He spared no details about his frustration with his drug-addicted friend. Dalton hadn't been giving Chris his fair share of the money from the Russians, and Dalton had tried to set up a side business with the Soviets to smuggle drugs. The next day, Dalton was back in Southern California. He was officially booked in Los Angeles and was forced to tell his version of the story again. Dalton held firm to the belief that he had been convinced by Chris

that they were both working for the CIA, not against it, and that he thought he was serving his country all along. That same morning, January 17, 1978, the tale of the espionage case was on the front page of the Los Angeles Times newspaper. The headline read, two Palos Verdes men accused of being Russian spies. Soon, newspapers around the country would be following the story. But reporters in bullpins weren't the only ones hard at work gathering details about the two friends. The office of the assistant U.S. attorney for the central. District of California was also on it. They were building the case of the United States of America

versus Christopher J. Boyce and Andrew Dalton Lee. A federal grand jury eventually indicted Chris and Dalton on eight charges. They all had to do with conspiracy, possession, and planned transmission to a foreign nation of documents that were classified as top secret. The allegations were violations of the Espionage Act. They were capital crimes, and the prosecution could seek the death penalty, but the trials would not go as smoothly as the indictment. Chris and Dalton had different legal teams,

and they would be tried separately. Chris's team was assembled by his father. They were trusted and they were competent, but they didn't have much experience litigating a show trial. Dalton's family was wealthier. They hired a high-powered Ivy League criminal lawyer and a young charismatic local lawyer. Early in the process, the Central Intelligence Agency,

the National Security Agency, and the White House made it clear that the majority of the documents that had been stolen from TRW would remain classified. They wanted a conviction, but they were more worried about guarding their secrets. That meant that the prosecutors were limited in what they could use against Chris and Dalton, and that decision essentially saved both young men.

The prosecution chose not to seek the death penalty because of the limitations about the classified documents and the publicity of the trial. However, life in prison for Chris and Dalton was still on the table. Chris's attorneys attempted to make a deal. In return for Chris's full cooperation with the CIA about every detail of the operation, they asked for a sentence of 12 years in prison. The prosecution laughed, so Chris went to trial first. It started on March 15th. Chris's defense hinged on the argument

that the specific documents that were being admitted by the prosecution were not that valuable and should not have been classified top secret. If they were over-classified, then they were worthless to the Soviets. If the documents were worthless, then Chris did not commit espionage or treason. The prosecution rolled out experts

who testified that the documents were highly valuable to the Soviets, and their exposure seriously concerned the intelligence community. Beyond that, prosecutors argued that Chris had weakened national security, risked the lives of operatives in the field, and endangered the lives of Americans at home. That was compelling for the jury and damaging for Chris. Chris's lawyers paraded out a line of character witnesses, teachers, family friends,

even his old Monsignor from St. John Fisher Church. And then Chris testified, which is a rare thing. On the witness stand, he claimed Dalton had lied to him, held out money to support his drug deals, and had even blackmailed him to continue when Chris wanted out. Chris's bitterness at Dalton's recklessness was plain. Chris enumerated a list of grievances against the U.S. government that drove him to commit the acts,

the Watergate scandal, the Vietnam War, the coup in Chile. But when he detailed the U.S. U.S. government's interference in Australian politics, he was stopped by the objections of the prosecutors. He had said enough, though. Newspapers rushed to print stories about America's facility in the Australian outback called Pine Gap. They relived the fiasco with Prime Minister Gough Whitlam and questioned why the CIA had concerned itself with Democratic elections of an ally. But Chris's litany of grievances didn't sway the jury. Nor did his claims that he had been blackmailed by Dalton. In the end, the jury deliberated for just three hours. They found Chris Boyce

guilty on all counts. When Dalton went to trial right after Chris, his defense centered on two things. Number one, anything that happened in Mexico was inadmissible. Number two, Dalton had been manipulated by Chris to believe that they were working for the CIA. The judge ruled that Dalton's testimony to the FBI agents in Mexico would stand. So would any testimony for anyone who took part in or witnessed his arrest. The Mexican government refused a White House request to participate in the trial against Dalton, but the U.S. diplomat who had tried to help Dalton outside the Russian embassy before he was arrested did testify. She said she saw the photo negatives that Dalton had tried to give to the Russians. Then a forensic expert linked those negatives to the specific Minox B spy camera that had been used to take them.

FBI agents founded in Dalton's childhood bedroom when they searched his family's home. For Dalton, the case looked really bleak, and that was just based on espionage evidence. The jury also heard all about his drug activities. The jury might have felt more sympathy for Dalton when he told his tale of his violent interrogations Mexico, and they might have believed the story that his friend had duped him into thinking he was working for the CIA and spreading misinformation that would help their country. But then they heard about Dalton's life as a drug dealer. His drug world associates testified that Dalton bragged about how his dealings with the Soviets were bankrolling his drug business, and soon

he would have the Russians doing all of his smuggling for him. Then a series of women testified. Some went to Mexico with him while he set up drug deals and delivered stolen secrets. Others, he had tried to impress with his spy game stories. Still others, he had turned into addicts with cocaine and heroin. Dalton's jury deliberated longer than Chris's jury, but the outcome was the same. Dalton was guilty on all eight charges. The former friends awaited sentencing at Terminal Island Federal Prison in Long Beach Harbor. They both agreed to talk to the CIA. The hope was that participating in a transparent debriefing would encourage the judge's leniency when he handed down their sentences. They had not, however, spoken to each other in any

meaningful way. There had been harsh words or no words. For the time being, Chris and Dalton were willing to blame the other guy for everything. Dalton received his sentence first. He was allowed to make a final statement before sentencing, and he maintained that he had been framed and used by his friend. The judge saw it differently. Not only had Dalton committed federal crimes by selling top secret information to a foreign government, but he was a known drug dealer. The judge gave him a life sentence in federal prison. Two months later, Chris Boyce returned to court to hear his sentence. He spoke eloquently to the court about the corruption in the country's institutions, but he admitted that that was no excuse for his actions. He maintained a slim

degree of defiance, but showed contrition overall. Chris avoided a life sentence, but he received 40 years in prison. Dalton was shipped to Lompoc Federal Prison 175 miles up the California coast. Chris was transferred there about 18 months later. There was some poetic justice in their destination. The prison was near Vandenberg Air Force Base, the launch site of the missile that took the first ever keyhole reconnaissance satellite into orbit. They were scheduled to spend at least 40 years in a prison right up the road from the place where the first spy satellite was launched. And scheduled is the key word in that sentence. One of them decided, on his own, to leave prison a little early. There is still so much more to tell in the story of Chris Boyce and Dalton Lee.

Next time on Infamous America, the full story of the young spies becomes public. There's a bestselling book, and then a movie, and then a sequel to the book, when one of them organizes an early exit from prison. The end of the saga is next week on the season finale. You're 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 Lyko, 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. 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.