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'John Anthony Walker, Jr.' (born July 28 1937) is a former Chief Warrant Officer and communications specialist for the U.S. Navy, who sold his services as a spy to the Soviet Union from 1968 to 1985, the height of the Cold War era. In this time he helped the Soviets decipher over one million classified encrypted naval messages, and most observers agree that he was one of the most effective and destructive Soviet spies in U.S. history.

Contents

Early life

Spy ring

Arrest and imprisonment

Further reading

See also

References

External links

Early life

Walker was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Coming from a broken home, he had various problems with the law as a teenager. A high school dropout, Walker committed a string of petty thefts and was arrested for one of them in 1955. John's older brother Arthur (already serving in the Navy) talked the judge into letting John join the Navy instead of going to prison.
Surprisingly, Walker did very well in his naval career and received glowing evaluations by his superiors praising his high technical skills and love of the Navy. He became an expert radioman. He completed submarine training in Groton, Connecticut and received a top secret security clearance for submarine duty, one of the most demanding in the armed forces and eventually reached the rank of Chief Warrant Officer.
In 1957 Walker married Barbara Crowley, whom he had met while stationed in Boston and they had four children together, three daughters and a son. However, before long, the marriage became very troubled due to the couple's long separations. Walker was a flamboyant, hard-drinking womanizer and there were reports that he neglected his wife and children.

Spy ring

Walker began spying for the Soviets in December 1967,^[1] when, facing serious financial problems because the South Carolina bar/restaurant he was operating on the side was deeply in debt and failing fast, he walked into the Soviet Embassy in Washington, DC and sold a classified document (a radio cipher card) for a few thousand dollars. Walker has justified this betrayal on grounds the classified Navy communications data he had initially sold the Soviets was completely compromised during the USS Pueblo incident (in which a U.S. Navy communications surveillance ship was captured on the high seas by North Korea, and its crew held prisoner for nearly a year). However, a 2001 thesis presented at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College using information from Soviet archives and from Oleg Kalugin, indicates that the ''Pueblo'' incident may have taken place because the Soviets wanted to study equipment that was described by documents supplied to them by Walker. ^[2]
Whenever Walker was transferred away from assignments where his handlers required information, he would recruit friends and members of his own family (his wife, his older brother Arthur and his son, Michael) to join in his spying activity. His friend and fellow spy was a Navy senior chief radioman named Jerry Whitworth, who had access to highly-classified satellite communications data. The resulting Walker Spy Ring continued to provide important intelligence to the Soviets even after John Walker retired from the Navy in 1976.
Walker's activities went completely unsuspected by U.S. authorities, despite his living quite extravagantly with his only source of visible income being his Navy pension. Living in Norfolk, Virginia after his Navy retirement he became a licensed private investigator and a private airplane pilot, both of which he conveniently used to explain his lavish lifestyle and frequent journeys all over North America and to Western Europe (mainly to meet his Soviet handler for instructions and to receive payment). As additional cover, he also joined far right-wing political organizations such as the John Birch Society. It is estimated that Walker earned more than $1 million USD from nearly two straight decades of spying.

Arrest and imprisonment

In May 1985, Walker and his accomplices were arrested on suspicion of espionage by the FBI. Authorities were tipped off by Walker's daughter, Laura, and his ex-wife whom he had neglected for years and finally refused to pay alimony. Investigators took a close look at Walker and found his income from his detective agency was insufficient to provide for his lavish lifestyle. Despite initial reluctance to investigate the case on the part of the FBI, the four men were arrested and were then tried for and convicted of espionage. Most received multiple life prison terms.
Initially, Walker maintained a defiant attitude, allegedly telling his interrogators "If I had access, consider it gone!" However, Walker offered almost immediate cooperation with authorities in a plea bargain in which his son would receive a sentence of no more than 25 years imprisonment. Walker also agreed to testify at the trial of Jerry Whitworth, and his testimony proved critical to convict Whitworth of espionage. Whitworth's attorneys did not contest his prosecution on tax charges. Walker's son Michael, who had a relatively minor role in the ring and turned state's evidence in exchange for a reduced sentence, was released from prison on parole in February 2000.
Some researchers believe Walker's nearly two decades of spying contributed strongly to the unprecedented accession of then-KGB director Yuri Andropov (whose agents had overseen Walker's activities) to become head of the Soviet Union after the November 1982 death of Leonid Brezhnev.
Walker is currently BOP Prisoner number 22449-037 and is housed at the U.S. Medical Center for Federal Prisoners (MCFP) in Springfield, Missouri. His release date is May 20, 2015, when he will be 77 years old.

Further reading

★ Howard Blum; ''I Pledge Allegiance: The True Story of the Walkers: an American Spy Family;'' Simon & Schuster Books, 1987, ISBN 0-671-62614-0

★ Walker, Laura with Jerry Horner; ''Daughter of Deceit: The Walker Spy Case;'' Word Publishing, 1988, ISBN 0849906598

★ Kneece, Jack; ''Family Treason: The Walker Spy Case;'' Paperjacks, 1988, ISBN 0-7701-0793-1

★ Robert W. Hunter; ''Spy Hunter: Inside the FBI Investigation of the Walker Espionage Case;'' Naval Institute Press, 1999, ISBN 1-55750-349-4

See also

★ KL-7 "Adonis" cipher machine (US Navy 1950s - 1970s)

★ KW-37 "Jason" cipher system (US Navy 1950s - 1990s)

★ KW-7

★ Hans-Thilo Schmidt

References

1. http://www.navyseals.com/community/articles/article.cfm?id=163&page=1
2. Analysis of the Systemic Security Weaknesses of the U.S. Navy Fleet Broadcasting System, 1967-1974, as Exploited by CWO John Walker (PDF) Master's thesis by Laura J. Heath

External links

★ Family of Spies: The John Walker Jr. Case

★ Code Name Catastrophe by William Scott Malone, William Cran