Ok i did some research on the real people and it looks like it was the mexico bust as i thought, but its far from conclusive. as i asked, in the movie they dont really say why the mexicans are accusing him of murder, if the kgb set the arrest up? if the car across the street when the cops came were kgb or cia. if the embassy lady was really just passing by. i dont see why they would randomly arrest some tourist with 10 cop cars out of no where especially since he didnt even do it. wikipedia doesnt say why at all.
wikipedia also says he will "Regret" making the photocopies, well in the movie the copies are turned into trash and dont mean anything, did they play some other role in real life?
a major spy thing like this i cant believe i had never even heard of these guys, and wikipedias articles are practically stubs.
did the soviets really get anything useful from this? they probably couldnt build our satelittes back then anyways, we were far advanced on computer tech. we just didnt know it.
i think the falcon is a dirty pinko traitor and doesnt deserve parole, i want to campaign to get him back in prison. he should have hanged like other traitors. funny too, it was all for nothing the soviets fell apart anyways.
plus who cares if the cia influences government in austrailia to help us keep our bases, i dont care, i am glad they did, those stations in australia are VITAL to us detecting nuclear missle launches, epsecially back then from the ussr. people need to wake up, this is not a utopian world and it will never be, we need to do whats neccisary to defend ourselves. go find the dharma people in the pacific if you want to live in peace and harmony with all nations.
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djsullivan
15 years ago
The two guys in the car across the street were a couple of undercover Mexico City police officers. Some time before Lee was arrested there was a police officer killed in a demonstration by, I believe there name was the Communist League of September 23rd. This assassination occurred in front of the Palacio de Bellas Artes (Fine Arts Palace) The police arrested Lee when they saw him write a message and throw the paper over the embassy gate, much like one of the demonstrators of the league had done before at one point. When he was in custody, the police noticed Lee had a Palacio de Bellas Artes postcard and the inspector commented that he was "carrying it as a trophy," implying that he was the murderer. While he was being interrogated, personnel from the U.S. Embassy were there as was a CIA agent. The agent discovered that he was carrying microfilm documents labeled as top secret and that likely had TRW's logo on them as well. As Lee was being tortured he admitted that he was conveying the documents to the Soviet Union, and it's likely that he gave them his contact's name as well. (Boyce)
This is the story I heard from A&E's Crime Library website (which doesn't appear to be up anymore unfortunately.) Although it's possible that the CIA may have staged this arrest nonetheless. In the movie Alex told Lee not to come to the embassy anymore to meet him after the first time since it was under CIA surveillance, an order which Lee disregarded. It's possible they may have noticed him early on as a regular visitor, which may have raised their suspicions. I don't know how far any parts of this story are from the truth, but one way or another they caught on to him.
One thing I didn't like about the movie is that it didn't explain the dynamics and exchanges of Lee's capture in Mexico which subsequently led to Boyce's capture very well, whether or not it was purposely set up. The movie often assumes the intelligence of the audience.
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