[Quick set-up: The following is part of a 1985 testimony before the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations Committee on Governmental Affairs. The speaker is Christopher Boyde, the famous subject of the book and movie ‘The Falcon and the Snowman.’ As an employee at TRW, he was given access to CIA secrets, which he began to sell to the KGB through his friend, Andrew Daulton Lee – the Snowman. The secrets included NSA code cyphers, information on spy satellites called Rhyolite and Argus, and on a satellite communications system called Pyramider. They were arrested in January 1977 and both found guilty of espionage and conspiracy. The thing is, when Boyde spoke to the subcommittee, they were shocked to hear that it was hilariously easy to walk out the door with state secrets of the highest magnitude.]
On the question of physical security at TRW’s black vault, I can answer it simply and quickly – there was none. In my view, and I believe in the eyes of my fellow workers there, security was a joke, certainly nothing to be taken seriously.
Take, for example, our project security manager, whom we regularly referred to as our “token hippie.” On lunch breaks, when not drinking with us or others at the local bars, he would often be skateboarding around the neighborhood. Sometimes he returned the worse for wear, with bruises and torn pants. On one occasion, he told me he wanted the security atmosphere in M4 to be as unobtrusive as that on a college campus…
I suppose most people view security regulations as something that should be held in awe by employees. That was clearly not the case at TRW. A number of employees made phony security badges as pranks. My immediate supervisor once made a security badge with a monkey’s face on it and, to everyone’s amusement, used it to come in and out of the building…
[…]
Within the TRW vault, management had effectively “compartmentalized” security away. By making the vault such a highly secret area those of us inside had been given, in effect, total autonomy. We worked under our own set of rules, or more accurately, lack of rules. We brought in an uncleared company locksmith and altered the numbers on the vault tumblers by half clicks to prevent unauthorized access by our superiors. We did not want them trespassing on our private preserve. We regularly partied and boozed it up during working hours within the vault.
Bacardi 151 was usually stored behind the crypto machines. Under security regulations we were required to destroy the code cards for the machines daily in a destruction blender. We chose instead to throw the code cards towards, but not necessarily in, canvas bags in the corner. We used the code destruction blender for making banana daiquiris and mai-tais. Although only about eight people had authorized clearances to the vault, often many non-cleared members of our “club”, to so to speak, would be in the vault for libations. On occasion the Project Security Manager would join us for a drink on the house.
Part of our informal duties included frequent runs to the liquor store with “orders” from various employees throughout the building. We used the satchel for classified material as cover to bring in their peppermint schnapps, rum, Harvey Wallbanger mix, what have you, along with our stout malt, back into M4. In doing so I sometimes used the satchel to take classified documents out. To return the documents, I used packages, potted plants, and camera cases. Packages and briefcases were never searched by the guards. On one occasion I needed to return a rather large ream of documents that I had taken out earlier in the satchel on a Rhyolite beer run. I went to a floral shop and bought two large clay pots about two feet tall. I put the ream of documents in one after wrapping them in plastic, covered it with dirt and then stuck busy plants in both pots. I brought one of the plants into the building myself and asked the security guard to carry the plant holding the documents back into the building.
He obliged.
Source:
Stephens, John Richard. “Official Documents.” Weird History 101: Tales of Intrigue, Mayhem, and Outrageous Behavior. New York: Barnes & Noble, 2006. 49, 50. Print.
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