The Falcon and the Snowman (53 page)

“Very well,” Kelleher said.

Then Stilz, looking agitated, rose to address the judge.

“Number one,” Stilz said, “we rejected the testimony because I would put no witness on the stand who I thought would lie. And number two—”

“Very well,” the judge said. “That is sufficient. I think we will let it rest at that.”

Resuming the pleading, Chelius argued that Chris's espionage acts had done less damage to the United States than Stilz had claimed. “Historically,” he said, “such crimes would have gravely damaged the defense interests of the United States; but modern rapid scientific improvement in the state of the art makes most, if not all, information obsolete within a matter of months. Some experts, for example, believe that such information cannot be protected longer than two years.” Then he turned, as Dougherty had before him, to the seedbed where Chris's acts of espionage had occurred—the TRW plant.

“One could use the cliché ‘When in Rome do as the Romans do,' for at TRW the security awareness and the importance they attached to the information, which has been the subject matter of the case, begged for just such a result. This, combined with the gullible nature of the defendant, made Christopher John Boyce an easy mark for completion of the crime.

“The probation report fairly details the personal life of Christopher John Boyce. I will not discuss it in any great detail except to point out that the defendant is twenty-four years old without a prior criminal record, a good history of satisfactory work and achievement, and a very supportive family, which is present in court today. All of these factors should assist Chris in achieving the societal goal of rehabilitation.”

Chelius stressed again Chris's cooperation during the debriefing sessions. “It should be noted that by giving this report he has subjected himself to personal risk of injury from other inmates, because such actions are inconsistent with the code of conduct within the prison system.

“What is the future of Christopher John Boyce?” Chelius asked, after a short pause, and then answered:

“Since the defendant's arrest and continuing through today, I have had numerous opportunities to discuss future goals of the defendant with him. One of the things that impresses me is his resolve to become a useful and productive member of society and to show this Court that he is capable of its trust and confidence. To this end I urge the Court to structure its sentence toward the goal of rehabilitation and not punishment.”

52

“Mr. Boyce, you have the right to address the Court before sentence is passed,” Kelleher said. “Do you wish to speak?”

“No, sir,” Chris responded.

“Does the Court wish to ask my client any questions, Your Honor?” Dougherty asked.

“No. Very well, you may be seated,” Kelleher said, and then began a long, often rambling monologue. Before he had spoken many words, it became apparent that the judge who had admitted three months earlier to being perplexed by the defendant was more sure of himself this day.

“This was a long and protracted trial, and much was said in the course of that trial,” he said. “Much was disclosed in the course of the trial. Some of what was said was believed by the jury and some by the Court. Much was believed neither by the jury nor by the Court.

“It has been urged on the Court today, for example, that the laxity of security, in whatever degree it existed, at TRW is a factor relevant to the sentence process. I am not sure that the record here would disclose in fact that there was a significant degree of laxity in the security program at TRW.” The defendant, he added, had testified about such laxity. “I don't believe a word of that.”

Chris shifted in his seat.

“The difficulty that this defendant faces at the present time is whether there is any integrity within him.

“The Court didn't find any veracity in him. The attempt that he made to rationalize his reasons for embarking on this program of espionage at one time was generally to the effect that he was appalled at his government and what it was doing to Australia.

“Absolutely made of whole cloth, totally irresponsible—an act of irresponsibility not only toward the penal laws of this country but toward its international relationships—and the defendant was not deterred in the saying of those things, because apparently he thought they would serve his purposes.”

It hadn't worked
.

“There are factors which run in his favor,” Kelleher continued. “The Court has in mind the cooperation which was given in attempting to minimize the wrong that was done by telling what he knew or what he could remember, perhaps, of the sensitive material that he had caused to be turned over to the Russians.

“But the Court had the impression that he just photographed everything in sight as long as it would serve the purpose of equipping Lee with that which he needed to sell to the Russians, and that there wasn't much discrimination by the defendant as to what he was photographing. He perhaps didn't even
know
the full extent to which he thereby caused the Russians to know about the sensitive program involved.

“Just what can conscientiously and consistently be done by a court in imposing sentence here which gives adequate recognition to the need to tell Boyce and all others like him that you play this game at risk of the most severe penalty … not a moderate penalty, but a severe penalty?

“There was real wisdom in the Congress in providing by statute that acts exactly such as here performed qualify one for a death sentence.”

There was a pause in his monologue, and in the silence of the courtroom one of Chris's sisters could be heard sobbing.

“
That
is obviously deterrence of the highest order,” he continued.

“I think this defendant was corrupted by an evil person. I think the defendant has within him some decency and perhaps some real potential for that decency to manifest itself and become meaningful to the community. If there were somehow disclosed to the Court a sentence which would allow this defendant to take his place at some reasonably early date in the community and still not send forth the wrong word in deterrence, the Court would embrace such a sentence.

“Even if the Court accepted as true the expressed motivation by this defendant that he was setting out to correct evil security practices by the government, the word needs to go forward that you don't do that.

“In the role he played, in the position he occupied, it was none of his business to attempt unilaterally and through criminal acts to revamp a system he didn't like, or which he disapproved, or of which he was critical.

“With all respect to Mr. Chelius and Mr. Dougherty, the Court will say to you gentlemen that you compound the difficulties for the Court in imposing sentence by the fact of who you are, respectively. It is part of the record of this court that you, Mr. Chelius, are one of those unusual persons, unusual in numbers, who bears the highest security classifications and who, accordingly, is unusually informed concerning all matters as they relate to the security program.

“And you, Mr. Dougherty, enjoy at least a reputation which certainly has the effect of placing you somewhat similarly situated to Mr. Chelius in respect to kinds of acts which are here disclosed as having been committed.” It was a reference to Dougherty's Marine Corps record.

“The Court will say at the same time that each of you gentlemen has at the very least earned the admiration and the respect of the Court for the professional manner in which each of you, under what must be unusual difficulties for each of you, discharged your professional duties.”

Kelleher then rejected Chelius' contention that in an era of fast-moving technology a nation is unable to hide all its secrets for long. “We have to survive despite the weaknesses of the system,” the judge said, “and we have to cope with the system and make it work better.”

Kelleher's long monologue was coming to an end. It had revealed that he had wrestled with a dilemma. And then he disclosed how he had resolved it.

Reversing himself, Kelleher said that he had concluded that the defendant would not benefit from the Youth Corrections Act and then gave his decision:

“The Court has a duty in regard to the sentence that it imposes here, and it would hope by whatever means may be available there would be some expansion of the restraints which decent people must self-impose if the system is to work or, in the alternative, that inability to exercise such restraint will lead to prison. Any legal reason why sentence should not at this time be imposed?”

“No, Your Honor,” Dougherty said.

And then, at the age of twenty-four, Christopher John Boyce was sentenced to forty years in prison.

53

After the arrest of Chris and Daulton, the Central Intelligence Agency ordered surprise security inspections at companies around the country that manufactured espionage satellites and other equipment for the CIA, and Stansfield Turner, the agency's director, reported afterward that the results were “distressing, perhaps appalling.”

TRW instituted a number of reforms in its security procedures after the arrests. It decreed that henceforth no employees would be allowed to work alone in the Black Vault, and that only two employees, working together, could set ciphers for the cryptographic machines.

Employees henceforth were forbidden to take packages, parcels, briefcases and other items, including potted plants, into and out of the vault. Rules were promulgated informing employees that while entering and leaving designated “secure areas,” they were subject to search. Television cameras were installed to monitor certain high-security areas twenty-four hours a day, and a score of other restrictions were imposed after the trials, including rules tightening surveillance of employees' foreign travel; periodic interviews regarding employees' personal lives and random inspections for security violations in the Black Vault were ordered.

TRW also informed the CIA that it would implement new screening procedures for staffing of sensitive areas, “looking toward maturity of personnel and compensation commensurate to the responsibilities of the job function.”

A new policy was put into force requiring annual rotation of employees in high-security assignments “to preclude incestuous relationships from developing.” And TRW said it would “embark on a positive education program to break down the code of silence that exists among most working groups” in the hope of encouraging employees in sensitive jobs to report the misconduct of others. And, TRW told the CIA:

All personnel history statements of employees thirty years of age and under will be required to list five names of associates of peer groups for interview as to possible suitability.

In October, 1978, in a speech at Cape Canaveral, President Jimmy Carter lifted the official veil of secrecy that had cloaked American espionage operations in space for twenty years: The United States owned up to using spy satellites. Carter declared:

“Photoreconnaissance satellites have become an important stabilizing factor in world affairs in the monitoring of arms agreements. They make an immense contribution to the security of all nations.”

A few weeks later, after the CIA had failed to anticipate a popular uprising in Iran against the Shah, the President sent a critical memo to CIA Director Turner. Alluding to the setback in Iran and other recent intelligence failures, Carter took the CIA to task: Perhaps, he suggested, the CIA had become too dependent upon “technical” means of intelligence collection—specifically, satellites. Perhaps, he added, it had forgotten the value of old-fashioned human spies.

There was never any public admission from the CIA about its grievous loss of data concerning Projects Rhyolite and Argus and the other secrets that had flowed out of the Black Vault for almost two years.

On December 8, 1978, William Clements, who had served as Deputy Secretary of Defense during part of the time Chris worked in the vault and was later elected governor of Texas, in a speech to the Philosophical Society of Texas that generally denounced what he saw as the sorry state of American military preparedness, said:

“Our intelligence community is in disarray. A major satellite intelligence system, developed and deployed at a cost of billions of dollars over the past decade, without Soviet knowledge, has been compromised by intelligence procedures as porous as Swiss cheese.”

A number of months after the conviction of Boyce and Lee, the CIA began to notice a difference in some of the telemetry signals the Rhyolite system was collecting from the test flights of Soviet ballistic missiles: they were in code.

For at least four years, the American satellites had secretly intercepted test data from the launches and transmitted the information to the Australian bases. The intercepted telemetry signals provided reports on velocity, heading, trajectory and other aspects of the test intended for Soviet researchers who used the data to diagnose the performance of their new hardware. Because of the eavesdropping by the Rhyolite birds, American technical experts also could analyze the signals and follow from afar the evolution of new Soviet weapons, including tests of advanced multiple warheads, atmospheric-reentry systems and radar-deceiving “penetration aids.” Along with on-the-ground and aircraft monitoring of Soviet telemetry, the eavesdropping enabled the CIA to develop a substantial body of information about the evolving capabilities of Russian weapons and give American negotiators at SALT conferences advance knowledge about the capabilities of the weapons. It was as if Americans, playing a game of poker with the Russians, were standing behind them, looking at their hand.

When the Russians began encoding the telemetry reports, the United States lost part of its ability to look over their shoulders. Exactly what role the information provided by the two young Americans played in the Soviets' decision is not known. Only the Soviet officials who made the decision to begin encoding the signals could attest to the importance of the information. But whatever the reason, it was a major setback for the United States because it closed a window on Soviet technology at a time of rapid improvements in Russian missile hardware; and further because when such satellites were becoming increasingly important to police international arms-control agreements, U.S. listening posts in Iran would soon be closed by political turmoil there.