OFFICIAL SAYS SPYING ARRESTS ARE 'THE TIP OF THE ICEBERG'

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000706090082-3
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 19, 2011
• Sequence Number: 82
• Publication Date: June 5, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified and Approved For Release 2011/12/19: CIA-RDP90-00965R000706090082-3
ARFMCLE APPS
'',PAG
NEW YORK TIMES
5 June 1985
Offal Says Spying Arrests
Are the Tip of the Iceberg'
By PHILIP SHENON
apedal to The New York Timm
- WASHINGTON, June 6 - A high-
z'ranking Government official said to-
'day that he expected "at least another
5four or five" arrests In corareetlon with
the spy can that has been described as
the most damaging in 30 years.
"I'm afraid this thing is really very
much the tip of the iceberg," the offi-
,cial said of the four arrests so far.
' The official, who is familiar with the
investigation and asked not to' be
named, said that the purported espio-
page operation was much larger than,
was thought when the authorities ar-
rested John A. Walker, the Virginia
than who has been accused of forming
-the Soviet ring.
w Meanwhile, Mr. Walker's former
wife said in an interview published to-
,?ay in The Las Angeles Times that her
husband bad received "well over
X$100,000" from Russian agents in ex -
,change for secret Navy Information.
Interviews With Mrs. Walker
The woman. Barbara Jay Crowley
'Walker, was quoted as saying that Mr.
Walker turned to espionage in the late
960's to raise money to save a bank-
rup t South Carolina bar and restaurant
1` he owned. In a separate interview, she
Said that she would not have told the
,authorities that Mr. Walker was a spy
had she known that her son was also
' 1mplicated.
Her son, Michael Walker, a yeoman
seaboard the aircraft carrier Nimitz, was
arrested when nearly 15 pounds of se-
-tret Navy documents were found near
his bunk, law-enforcement officials
j 'said.
C.' Mrs. Walker said she had been in
-touch with her son and told, "Dad
? framed use to get svess with yon," ac-
'Sk hegan, Mel MWay, 20 rs. Way ~ said old, that
she spoke on the telephone Wednesday
Mrs. who lived in
. "She believes someone placed docu-
ments that were incriminating near his unit," Mrs. Way said, adding that
rs. Walker said that she believed her
former husband had."spies" on the Ni-
? `lniitz whom he directed to frame her
on. Another Sailor Is Questioned
There were several other develop.
;tents today in the case:
r' qme Navy said that a sailor at the
Pensacola Naval Air Station in Florida
who had worked with a member of the
`Walker family was interviewed by in-
vestigators today but was not consid-
ered a suspect. No further information
as made public.
qA Federal prosecutor said one of
~le men already arrested had tried to
pose the spy ring because he
by outcome of another
y publicized espionage case.
cThe John Birch Society, a conserva-
tive political group, confirmed that Mr.
Walker and his wife had been members
from 1964 to about 1908 while they ware
living in Charleston, S.C. I
The Government official said it was
unclear when additional arrests would
be made, but he said there was no ques-
tion that they were coming.
.'This story is going to go an and on,"
he said.
Law-enforcement agents said they
ire attempting to deal with what one
.described as a "mountain" of evidence
gathered during an investigation that
shad stretched from coast-to-coast and
as far away as Asia and Europe.
$ The Federal Bureari of Inv tigatim,.
they said, was tracking leads today
throughmt the ceonm'y.
Mr. Walker, his son, Michael, said
older brother, Arthur, have been ar-
rested and charged with espionage. A
man described as Mr. Walker's closest
friend, Jerry A. Whitworth, has also
been accused of spying for the Soviet
Union. All of the arrrested men served
in the Navy.
'I Want Him Punished'
In the interview with The Cape Cod
Times that was also published today,
Mrs. Walker said her former husband
"had a real knack for destroying peo-
ple who loved him and using them.-
.'I want him punished," she was
quoted as saying. "How can a father do
this? Be used his own son. If what they
say is true, he's lucky he's in jail be-
cause I would kill him."
Mrs. Walker has acknowledged that
she told the Federal Bureau of Investi-
gation about her husband's alleged
spying. But she said she had not known
about her son's connection to the case.
"I only hope my son can forgive me,"
she said.
She told The Los Angeles Times that
she had tried to visit her son in jail, but
he refused to see her.
She said he "also loved the glamor of
being a spy," according to The Los An-
geles Times story. "He loved being we
step ahead of other people, of walking
down the street and lwowi ng somsthing
no one else did."
Anonymous Letters to F.B.I.
li
I
C
n
a
orris, the prosecutor who 18
handling the case against Mr. Whits
worth said today in an interview that
the suspect had tried to expose the pur-
ported spy ring because of publicity
about another espionage case.
The prosecutor, Joseph Russoniello,
the United States Attorney in San Fran-
cisco, said that Mr. Whitworth wrote
anonymous letters to the F.B.I. last
i year, offering to expose the operation
in exchange for immunity from prose.
cation.
Mr. Ru,OUNetlo said the letters had
probably been the result of the case of
Joseph Harper, a California man who
pleaded guilty last year to selling min.
site secrets to Polish and Russian
agents. Mr. Harper entered the plea
shortly after a court ruled that the
death penalty was unconstitional in
Federal espionge cases.
Mr. Russonlello said publicity over
the court's ruling had probably re-
Ileved Mr. Whitworth, prompting the
letters.
"It seems to me more than coinci-
dental that at the time that the Harper
case was filling the media with discus.
sion of the poesibiliy of the death sen-
tence" that Mr. Whitworth's letters
would appear, the prosecutor said. In a
later anonymous letter, Mr. Whitworth
withdrew the offer, prosecutors said. .
Declassified and Approved For Release 2011/12/19: CIA-RDP90-00965R000706090082-3