Christopher John Boyce

Template:Short description Template:For Template:Use mdy dates Template:Infobox person Christopher John Boyce (born February 16, 1953) is a former American defense industry employee who alleged CIA involvement in the Whitlam dismissal in Australia. After this, he attempted to sell United States spy satellite secrets to the Soviet Union in Mexico City in the 1970s.<ref name=sparea81>Template:Cite news</ref>

Early lifeEdit

Boyce is the son of Charles Eugene Boyce, former Director of Security for McDonnell Douglas Aircraft Corporation, and Noreen, née Hollenbeck. Along with his three brothers and five sisters, Boyce was reared in Southern California, in the affluent community of Rancho Palos Verdes, a suburb southwest of Los Angeles.

In 1974, Boyce was hired at TRW, an aerospace firm in Redondo Beach, California.

EspionageEdit

File:SpaceParkBldgM4 20231225.jpg

Bldg. M4 at Space Park, where Boyce committed espionage from March 1975 through December 1976<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>

Within months, Boyce was promoted to a highly sensitive position in TRW's "Black Vault" (classified communications center) with a top secret security clearance, where he worked with National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) transmissions.<ref>Pilger, John, A Secret Country, Vintage Books, London, 1992, Template:ISBN, pp. 212–15, 230, 236, 252.</ref>

Boyce said that he began getting misrouted cables from the CIA discussing the agency's desire to depose the government of Prime Minister Gough Whitlam in Australia. Boyce said the CIA wanted Whitlam removed from office because he wanted to close US military bases in Australia, including the vital Pine Gap secure communications facility, and withdraw Australian troops from Vietnam. For these reasons, John Pilger, Australian journalist and author, has written that US 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.<ref name="Spy's Story">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> 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 as well. Boyce considered going to the press, but believed the media's earlier disclosure of CIA involvement in the 1973 Chilean coup d'état had not changed anything for the better.Template:Citation needed

Instead, he gathered a quantity of classified documents concerning secure US 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. According to a book that Boyce and his wife co-authored, the information was not valuable to the Soviet Union.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

ExposureEdit

Boyce, then 23, was exposed after Lee was arrested by Mexican police in front of the Soviet embassy on January 6, 1977.<ref name=convesc>Template:Cite news</ref> His arrest was "almost by accident": Lee was arrested for littering.<ref name=convesc/> During his harsh interrogation, Lee, who had a top secret microfilm in his possession when arrested, confessed to being a Soviet spy and implicated Boyce. Boyce was arrested ten days later on January 16, when the FBI found him hiding out at the shack he was renting near Riverside, California. He was convicted on eight counts of espionage on April 28 1977, and sentenced by federal district judge Robert Kelleher on September 12 to forty years in prison, initially at Terminal Island, then the Metropolitan Correctional Center in San Diego.<ref name=gtslft>Template:Cite news</ref><ref name=respgu>Template:Cite news</ref><ref name=spsus>Template:Cite news</ref><ref name=soruse>Template:Cite news</ref> On July 10, 1979, he was transferred to the federal penitentiary in Lompoc, California.

EscapeEdit

On January 21, 1980, Boyce escaped from Lompoc.<ref name=convesc/><ref name=mlwsen>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Boyce managed to evade the authorities and ended up in northern Idaho, where he found refuge in a cabin outside Bonners Ferry.<ref>Rasmussen, Cameron. The Falcon lands in North Idaho: An unlikely story of espionage and betrayal. The Reader, May 14, 2021. https://sandpointreader.com/the-falcon-lands-in-north-idaho/ Retrieved September 11, 2024.</ref> While a fugitive, Boyce carried out 17 bank robberies in Idaho and Washington, hoping to pay for passage to the Soviet Union, and adopted the alias of "Anthony Edward Lester".<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> According to Boyce, he studied aviation, not to flee to the Soviet Union as some suspected, but to rescue Daulton Lee from Lompoc.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> On August 21, 1981, Boyce was arrested by U.S. Marshals while eating in his car outside "The Pit Stop", a drive-in restaurant in Port Angeles, Washington.<ref name=fismn>Template:Cite news</ref><ref name=incoerg>Template:Cite news</ref> Authorities had received a tip about Boyce's whereabouts from his former bank robbery confederates.

Return to prisonEdit

On January 26, 1982, in Los Angeles, Boyce was convicted of escape from federal prison in a nonjury trial before U.S. District Court Judge Lawrence Lydick, a proceeding which lasted three minutes.<ref name=thrmin>Template:Cite news</ref> The following week he was flown to Idaho and was arraigned in Boise, where he pleaded not guilty to charges related to multiple bank robberies.<ref name=lworbrb>Template:Cite news</ref><ref name=bchwrtib>Template:Cite news</ref><ref name=pldinno>Template:Cite news</ref><ref name=upiarch>Template:Cite news</ref><ref name=soshch>Template:Cite news</ref><ref name=clmbri>Template:Cite news</ref>

That spring, Boyce appeared before Judge Harold Ryan in U.S. District Court in Boise and was sentenced to three years for his escape and 25 years for bank robbery, conspiracy, and breaking federal gun laws.<ref name=lmtguipl>Template:Cite news</ref><ref name=bfsen>Template:Cite news</ref><ref name=lmtsent>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Given an aggregate total sentence of 68 years, he was transferred to United States Penitentiary, Leavenworth in northeastern Kansas.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref name=ciagov>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Later that year, Boyce gave a television interview to Ray Martin for Australia's 60 Minutes about the dismissal of Whitlam. After this he was assaulted by fellow inmates, an attack he believed was orchestrated by prison guards.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> After the attack, he was transferred to USP Marion in southern Illinois, where he was held in isolation.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

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.<ref name=ciagov/><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

With support from senators, he was transferred out of solitary confinement in 1988 to the Minnesota Correctional Facility – Oak Park Heights near the Twin Cities.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> At this prison in January 1993, Boyce was almost killed by Earl Steven Karr, a mentally ill fellow inmate and convicted pipe bomber. Karr had planned to blind Boyce with a mace-like concoction after luring him into his cell, then electrocute him using a homemade electric shock prod fashioned out of a rod and newspaper. The plot failed when Karr slipped on a puddle of mace, allowing Boyce time to escape.<ref>Adams, Jim (July 17, 1993) "Spy Escapes Bomber's Plot in State Prison Template:ProQuest, Star Tribune. Retrieved November 22, 2023.</ref>

Boyce was transferred in 1998 to ADX Florence, the supermax facility in Colorado west of Pueblo; he believed this was punishment for a newspaper article he had written.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> In 2000, he was transferred to FCI Sheridan in Oregon, northwest of Salem.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Release and subsequent lifeEdit

Boyce was released from prison on parole on September 16, 2002, after serving a little more than 25 years, accounting for his time spent outside from the escape.<ref>U.S. spy freed after 25 years in prison / Christopher Boyce sold secrets to Soviets. Chuck Squatriglia, San Francisco Chronicle, March 15, 2003.</ref><ref>The Falcon and the Fallout, Richard A. Serrano, Los Angeles Times, June 23, 2007.</ref> Shortly thereafter he married Kathleen Mills, whom he had met when she was working as a paralegal spearheading efforts to obtain parole for Lee. After her success with Lee, she turned her attention to securing parole for Boyce as well, and the two developed a personal relationship.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Boyce is on good terms with his father and eight siblings, and was with his mother as well until her death in 2017.<ref name=Breeze>Template:Cite news</ref>

In 2013, Boyce published a book titled American Sons: The Untold Story of the Falcon and the Snowman, which mainly discusses his time in prison and relationship with his wife, Kathleen, and writer Vince Font. At that time, he was living a relatively quiet life where he has resumed his participation in falconry as a frequent pastime.<ref name=Breeze /> When interviewed at the time his book was released, Boyce expressed support for the actions of Edward Snowden in exposing information about the United States government's surveillance programs.<ref name=Breeze />

In popular cultureEdit

The story of their case was told in Robert Lindsey's best-selling 1979 book The Falcon and the Snowman. This book was turned into a film of the same title in 1985 by director John Schlesinger starring Timothy Hutton as Boyce and Sean Penn as Lee.

Lindsey's initial book was followed by The Flight of the Falcon: The True Story of the Escape and Manhunt for America's Most Wanted Spy (1983), an account of Boyce's escape from prison and subsequent bank robbing spree.

ReferencesEdit

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External linksEdit

Template:Soviet Spies Template:TRW Template:Authority control