Reply #14: remember penn in 'the falcon and the snowman'? [View All]

[pretzel4gore]

with tim hutton playing lead in a true story about christopher royce (?) dam i forget the spelling....anyway, penn played royce's friend in a scheme to sell secrets to russians during reagan era.....both were caught and went to prison...royce escaped and was free in pacific northwest for a few years but America Most Wanted, i believe, tipped a rat off who turned royce in. chris was recently released after serving his sentence (i have no idea about the friend whom sean penn played)
For anyone who doesn't know, Chris Royce was son of a US military/intelligence heavy who got a job at 'TRW' or somesuch based on his father's connections. At TRW Royce had top secret clearnce, and he was amazed at the homer simpson like atmosphere (blast doors were propped open with chairs, communication room equipoment was used to order pizza, drugs and booze were used routinely etc) Royce also found out about the CIA sabatoging of australian labour unions and other stuff...he resented the brainlessness of the things he found...to retaliate, he sold secret to the russians, (the money was justification; but royce never cared about the money) and of course got caught..along with mordecai vannunu and leonard peltier chris royce should be considered a hero for fighting the Great Dull Beast ...some may consider him a traitor, but no one who knows the story does
btw 21 Grams was a superb movie, as was Mystic River