JOHN WALKER: 'THE BIZARRE CASE'

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000100370001-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 21, 2011
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: April 6, 1987
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Si Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/21: CIA-RDP90-00965R000100370001-3
hRTICLE APPEARED WASHINGTON TIMES
ON PAGE 6 April 1987
John Walker: `The Bizarre Case' with him a 30-day listing of key set- 1976 because he feared a security
By Tom Kelly tings for a Navy cipher system and check would reveal his police record
THE WASHINGTON TIMES the Soviets gave him immediate, as a teen-age burglar, he continued
cautious attention. in the spy business as a middle man.
John A. Walker Jr., according to Walker claims, and Mr. Barron The Soviets would pay him over 17
'
one credible authority, is sa agrees, he immediately gained the years more than $500,000, possibly
tanic but he doesn't look like upper hand. When the Soviets bun much more. In terms of value a
the he devil. dled him out and drove him around gross underpayment, but there are
If you had seen him on a May town to shake off surveillance, he limits on payments for spies.
afternoon two years ago, he would grew annoyed. "You [obscenities] "They would have paid him any
have seemed a bemused, exception- are going to make me late for my practicable sum, but the KGB does
ally hairy middle-aged man who had watch," Walker told Mr. Barron he not pay money according to what the
lost his way in Montgomery County. finally told them in exasperation. product is worth," Mr. Barron said.
Actually he was a spy, with beard, That was the way he regarded ev- "The money is an instrument of con-
mustache and toupee, hard at work, eryone with whom he did business, trol. They don't want to pay too much
the most remarkable spy yet iden- including his spies. Mr. Barron said ... They don't want an agent to be-
tified in American history. If he lost they were a motley bunch - Walk- come too independent and there is
his way, he lost it years before as an er's ineffectual older brother, Ar- the question of how much can some-
adolescent thief. thur, a retired Navy officer; John's one of the backgrounds and circum-
John Barron's book, "Breaking son Michael, a former Navy enlisted stances of Whitworth or Walker
The Ring: The Bizarre Case of The man who apparently just wanted his absorb"
Walker Family Spy Ring;' published father's approval; and Jerry A. Whit- In Whitworth's case the problem
by Houghton Mifflin, presents worth, the former Navy chief in Cali- was obvious. He was a ridiculously
Walker as a riddle and offers a sim- fornia who had critical access to the conspicuous consumer; he bought a
ple and reasonable answer. Navy's whole cryptographic system $900 cockatoo and vast amounts of
The author and his subject had and who was clearly more a fool than expensive lingerie for his wife and
the service in common. Both left the fanatic. rented a white Rolls-Royce.
Navy to begin new careers - Mr. Walker "couldn't stand" Whit- Walker was much shrewder. He
Barron to be a reporter at The Wash- worth, Mr. Barron said. "If you ana- ran a private detective agency in
ington Star, then a writer for Read- lyze the FBI evidence, the two were Norfolk which offered a plausible
er's Digest; and Walker to be our never together. When Walker would source of income (and which he ap-
most successful known traitor
fly all the way to California to get parently ran at a profit). It also of met In 1985 m measure. . M and oec whatever Whitworth had stolen, he fered an explanation for frequent
had served with Barron, intelligence wh o on spent as little time with him as he trips and secretive behavior, and it
Berlin served with Navy cidnce could. He didn't want to be around gave him constant opportunity to
Berlin in the ce5off and the intelligence enjoyed the guy." dress up in disguises, once as a Ku
she confidence of the Last November, Walker was sen- Klux Klansman in full regalia.
services in general, was helping to life and his son Michael He liked the detective business.
FBI. received 25 years in prison. Walker's He certainly was zany, flamboyant.
"I was with him on three occa- brother Arthur was sentenced in He would adopt poses most private
sions;' Mr. Barron said recently." MY 1985 to life in prison and Whitworth detectives wouldn't, as a priest or a
primary, indeed my sole purpose, received a 365-year sentence in Au- scout master, and he'd run all sorts
was to assess the accuracy of what gust 1986. of far-out operations but he was very
he was saying about his relations Walker, a man of remarkable abil- diligent. He delivered what he said
with the KGB. I found everything he ities but unremarkable appearance, he would ... and was well-regarded
said very plausible. could control and, if he wished, en- by the police."
"It was as if he was speaking chant most of those who came his There was irritation with his asso-
about a third party, as if we were the way. ciates. His brother Arthur, who had
audience watching a play. He would A San Francisco lawyer who had a low-level job in a shipyard, was
laugh about his own foibles and he served with Walker on the USS unproductive. His wife, Barbara,
was very accurate about the Soviets, Niagra Falls, a supply ship carrying whom he forced to accompany him
about their incompetence. Once he vital cipher parts and machines, told on some deliveries (and who he later
remarked,'They didn't run me. I ran Mr. Barron that Walker was highly divorced), and his daughter, Laurie,
them. " regarded for his wit, unquestionably whom he tried to persuade to rejoin
The running began in 1968 when the most popular officer on the ship, the Army to spy for him, would even-
Walker was a Naval warrant officer and had a powerful effect on women. tually turn him in.
stationed at a boring job in Norfolk, "He is talented. He has a sort of The two who were productive, his
Va., and life, he told Mr. Barron, cunning, instinctive capability to son Michael and Whitworth, he
seemed arid and meaningless. read people, high and low. He cer- treated, respectively, with indiffer-
"Looking back;' Walker said," I think tainly did succeed in ingratiating ence and contempt. Michael, sta-
I had a death wish.' himself, of dominating a great diver- tioned aboard the USS Michael,
Nimitz, was
One gray January afternoon sity of people. I do not understand given a single $1,000 payment for
Walker parked his car in downtown the magnetism he exerted on thousands of high-level stolen doc-
Washington, looked up the address women," Mr. Barron said. uments. Whitworth, the custodian of
of the Soviet Embassy and took a Walker also attracted money. cryptographic machines and materi-
taxi to 16th and K streets NW. He had After he retired from the Navy in als, was paid at least $300,000 for
Continued
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/21: CIA-RDP90-00965R000100370001-3
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/21: CIA-RDP90-00965R000100370001-3
extremely valuable stuff, but Walker
regarded him as a self-deluding
phony.
Mr. Barron said the rating is accu-
rate: "Whitworth was affected and
pretentious. He fancied himself a
gourmet but his idea of a great res-
taurant was some third-rate Indian
place serving curry. Over the years
he subscribed to 29 different finan-
cial journals but he invested in Kru-
gerrands and worthless futures ..
He was very arrogant, which
was part of his pretense, right up to
the end ... After his conviction he
kept on lying to the FBI and they
finally broke it off and then Whit-
worth started crying and denounced
the agents for being sanctimonious."
Walker, by contrast, was cool and
conscientious. He told Mr. Barron
the spy business is hard, hard, al-
ways traveling, running around in
the woods." Which brings Mr. Barron
to his final analysis of John Walker,
the master spy.
When the FBI was first con-
structing its case, it tried to etch a
psychological profile of Walker and
it consulted Stanislav Levchenko,
the former KGB agent who defected
in Japan.
-Levchenko was a very astute stu-
dent, recruiter and handler of
agents and I was present out in San
Francisco when they asked him
about Walker and he said, 'Walker is
a satanic figure. He is Svengali-like,
activated by a very powerful ego to
which you ought to play."
Mr. Barron thinks Mr. Levchen-
ko's analysis is the only one that
makes sense - Walker is satanic.
"He is, additionally, a sociopath,
without any scintilla of value, prin-
ciple, guiding morals. He is capable
of anything. Nothing is sacred, not
children."
He seemed, like Satan, to believe
in only one peer.
"He was extraordinarily blasphe-
mous. He would say something
blood-curling and then he would
laugh and say, 'Well, God will forgive
me, he and I have a sense of humor."
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/21: CIA-RDP90-00965R000100370001-3