On this day, April 28, in 1977, Christopher Boyce, whose spying on the United States was later chronicled in the film “The Falcon and the Snowman,” was convicted for selling secrets to the Russians.
Boyce was 22 when his father, a former FBI agent, got him a job at a company that helped run America’s secret spy satellite system. Boyce gained access to the “black box” that held telex messages with CIA headquarters in Langley.
Boyce and his childhood chum Andrew Daulton Lee began selling intelligence to Soviet officials in Mexico City. Boyce, who was into falconry, was nicknamed The Falcon; Lee, a cocaine dealer, was The Snowman.
Their scheme ended after Lee was falsely arrested in Mexico on suspicion of killing a police officer. Lee, who was carrying secret microfilm, confessed to being a spy and implicated Boyce.
Boyce was sentenced to 40 years. He escaped from prison in 1980, carrying out 17 bank robberies before he was captured a year later.
