A Spy Ring Goes to Court

By Ed Magnuson

U.S. Navy contingency plans for a Middle East war. Details on the top-secret communications network used by all of the Armed Forces. The weaknesses of a Navy vessel that serves as the communications center for the entire Atlantic fleet. Those were only some of the secrets allegedly passed to Soviet agents by John Walker's Navy spy ring, federal prosecutors claimed last week. Summed up Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger: "For 20 years this flow of classified material went to the Soviets. It is a serious loss."

The scope of the ring's activities became clearer in court actions on both coasts. In San Francisco, a federal grand jury produced a new and more specific indictment against Jerry Whitworth, 46, a retired Navy chief radioman, who allegedly supplied the most valuable information. In Norfolk, Va., Arthur Walker, 50, was found guilty of conspiring with his brother John to sell secrets to the Soviets. John Walker, 48, also a former Navy chief radioman and the alleged ringleader, is scheduled to go on trial for espionage in Baltimore on Oct. 28. John's son, Michael, 22, a former Navy seaman, will be tried after his father. All four were arrested after John Walker's former wife Barbara told the FBI last November that she suspected her husband had been spying for the Soviets for more than 15 years.

The charges originally filed against Whitworth on June 17 were grave enough. The one-count indictment accused him of conspiring to commit espionage, claiming that he had given John Walker, a longtime Navy friend, "cryptographic key lists and key cards" that were later sold to Soviet agents. Such keys would allow the Soviets to eavesdrop on coded Navy communications, and even, in the opinion of one communications expert, to change Navy messages for their own deceptive purposes. Holding the highest security clearances, Whitworth had been in charge of cryptographic centers on the carrier Enterprise and at the sprawling Alameda Naval Air Station.

The new indictment against Whitworth contains twelve counts, one of which charges that he illegally copied a document known as Annex K while stationed on the Enterprise. Prosecutors said the document outlines the Navy's plan for communications in the Indian Ocean in the event of major hostilities in the Middle East. Other experts said this information would permit the Soviets to figure out what U.S. military units would be involved. The indictment also accuses Whitworth of giving John Walker details of the Autodin system, which is used by all of the U.S. Armed Forces to transmit computerized information via satellites. In addition, he allegedly passed along documents explaining an adjunct to Autodin called the Remote Information Exchange System, which enables the Navy to send data to its vessels at sea. The new charges include five counts of failing to report at least $332,000 in income from John Walker for the sale of the secrets, possibly starting in 1970. The total, said U.S. Attorney Joseph P. Russoniello, "suggests that [the information] was extremely important to the Soviets."

Pale and gaunt, Whitworth pleaded "not guilty" to all charges, which, if he is convicted, could keep him imprisoned for the rest of his life. James Larson, his attorney, claimed that "the Government has systematically exaggerated the significance of the information that it believes has been passed by Mr. Whitworth." Justice Department sources told TIME that plea-bargaining discussions were under way with Whitworth's attorneys. If Whitworth pleads guilty and testifies against John Walker, he would not undergo the humiliation of a trial.

After a four-day trial without a jury, Judge J. Calvitt Clarke Jr. needed just 15 minutes to pronounce Arthur Walker, a retired Navy lieutenant commander, guilty of espionage. He faces a maximum sentence of three life terms and a fine of $40,000. The defense called no witnesses. Meek, stooped and without his usual toupee, Walker looked more like an accountant than a spy. His lawyers tried to portray him as an innocent dupe of his aggressive younger brother. One of them told reporters, "He may have been a sap, but he was no spy."

Arthur, however, had described his espionage activities to the FBI after his arrest, waiving his right to have a lawyer present. As related in court, he said John had begun his contacts with the KGB in a simple way: "He drove to Washington and parked down from the Russian embassy for a couple of nights." Soviet agents noticed him and made contact. Arthur said that early in 1980, after the brothers' electronic repair shop went broke, John told him how he could make a lot of money. At the time, Arthur was feeling very depressed. "We were sitting outside in his pickup truck," Arthur told the federal agents. "I said I could cry. So he said, 'Come on, take a walk.'" Then John turned to Arthur and said, "I have friends who will pay for classified information." Arthur replied, "Now I know where you get your bucks."

It was at John's urging, Arthur said, that he got a job at VSE, a defense contractor in Chesapeake, Va., involved in ship maintenance, where he had access to classified material. He passed two documents to John and got $6,000 for each, he said. "It was my happy-hour money," he explained. "I bought some stuff ... a gas grill, a new hair piece, brakes for the car."

According to Arthur, John later complained that the papers were "not worth the risk involved" and prodded him for better secrets. Arthur supplied two more documents. One was a "damage-control book" for the U.S.S. Blue Ridge. It outlined procedures to follow whenever a part of the ship sprung a leak, developed a fire or otherwise broke down. The other was an extract of "casualty reports," detailing equipment problems experienced by a class of amphibious assault ships. Arthur's lawyers argued that the documents carried the lowest security classification, "confidential," and were of little value to the enemy. But Captain Edward Sheafer Jr., a senior intelligence officer in the U.S. Atlantic Command, identified the Blue Ridge as the key communications vessel for the Atlantic fleet and called the damage-control book "a bible for sabotage." As for the casualty reports, he said, "I would give my eye teeth to have the similar history of a Soviet class of ships."

Arthur Walker's trial shed new light on his brother's activities. Not only did John recruit his son, brother and best friend as spies, he allegedly strapped a money belt on his unsuspecting mother to bring spy payments back from Europe. Also introduced as evidence was a set of KGB instructions seized at John Walker's Norfolk home. They read like something out of a bad mystery novel. Hand-lettered in red and blue ink, the directions told Walker what route to take to meet a Soviet agent in Vienna, starting at a store called Komet Kuechen, which sells kitchen cabinets. He was to make repeated stops at specified shop windows. "You will be contacted either at the Bazala store or somewhere on your route," the paper said. "If no one contacts you, please use alternate dates and the same route."

Walker was allegedly following KGB instructions at the time of his arrest. According to testimony at Arthur Walker's trial, FBI agents learned from telephone wiretaps that John was going to make a drop last May 19. They trailed his van by car and helicopter as it wound through the back roads of Maryland, eventually stopping several times at the same remote spot. When Walker finally left the vicinity, agents tramped through the woods, kicking smelly garbage bags, until they came across what one called "a classic type of Soviet drop site." It was a log between two trees marked with No Hunting signs. Beside the log, the agents found a neat brown bag filled with fresh garbage. Wrapped in plastic under the garbage were classified documents. One FBI agent scoffed at the method as "pre-World War II trade craft." Walker was tracked to a nearby motel, where he was arrested. Seen in the drop area, Soviet Embassy Official Alexei Tkachenko quickly returned to Moscow.

Clumsy and bumbling as it evidently was, the Walker spy ring managed to operate without detection for nearly two decades. That speaks eloquently of the need for more effective measures to keep military secrets from the nation's enemies. If a bunch of amateurs could jeopardize naval communications with relative ease, the damage real professionals might do is easy to imagine. --By Ed Magnuson. Reported by B. Russell Leavitt/Norfolk and Charles Pelton/San Francisco

With reporting by Reported by B. Russell Leavitt/Norfolk, Charles Pelton/San Francisco