Andrew Daulton Lee

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Andrew Daulton Lee (1952- ) a United States citizen and Los Angeles native, was portrayed by actor Sean Penn in director John Schlesinger's 1985 movie The Falcon and the Snowman based on the book by Robert Lindsey. The book and the film documented the true to life espionage activities of Lee (a heroin and cocaine dealer by trade, hence his nickname, "The Snowman") and his childhood friend Christopher Boyce during the mid-1970s. The Boyce character (nicknamed "The Falcon" because of his long interest in the sport of falconry) was played in the film by actor Timothy Hutton.

For nearly two years, Lee (the 5'2" adopted eldest son of a wealthy physician) traveled to Mexico City operating as the courier for an espionage scheme which had consisted of his delivering to Soviet Embassy officials classified documents concerning how to decrypt secure US government message traffic and detailed specifications of the latest US spy satellites. These documents were supplied by Boyce, a code clerk employed with the large US defense contractor TRW, headquartered in the Los Angeles community of Redondo Beach. Boyce (whose father was an aerospace corporation security officer and a retired FBI agent) held a top secret clearance and worked in the company's "Black Vault" (classified communications center.)

Lee and Boyce made an agreement to evenly split the profits from the espionage ring. Boyce had used his share mainly for his personal use; while Lee used his split of the profits to further his drug business; purchasing more expensive drugs such as heroin and being able to gain tremendous profits by selling the expensive, hard to obtain drugs in the United States. At one meeting with his Soviet handlers, Lee proposed for them to aid him in his drug trade by transporting cocaine from Peru to the Soviet Embassy in Mexico under diplomatic seal. At points when Boyce was doubting the effectiveness of his espionage; Lee had convinced him that the spy ring should expand (in a manner similar to a drug ring expanding). Lee had proposed adding his younger brother as an alternate courier, as well as recruiting a friend of his who was a US Navy sailor aboard an aircraft carrier, and have a fellow drug dealer be brought into the spy ring to sell the same intelligence reports to other foreign nations, namely China. Lee did indeed (behind Boyce's back), make copies of the reports for intention to be sold to the Chinese, which was a move he would later regret.

In December 1976, Lee (with top secret microfilm on his person) was arrested by Mexican police in front of the Soviet Embassy on the misplaced suspicion of having killed a Mexico City police officer, but under torture instead confessed to espionage, quickly implicating Boyce in the scheme. Lee was convicted of espionage and sentenced to life in prison at the federal penitentiary in Lompoc, California. Boyce received a sentence of 40 years. Lee's heavier sentence for the same offense was likely due to his prior criminal record. When Boyce had escaped prison in 1980, Lee was immediately remanded to another facility in Marion, Illinois, which was cause of a falling out of the friendship between him and Boyce. He was released on parole in 1998. At some point after his release he was apparently hired by Sean Penn to be Penn's personal assistant.^[1]