ARMY JOINS IN ASSESSING SPY DAMAGE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000807470039-7
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 13, 2012
• Sequence Number: 39
• Publication Date: June 13, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

~j Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/01/13: CIA-RDP90-00965R000807470039-7
ARTICLE AFFILRlrl
Army Joins
In Assessing
Spy Damage
By George C. Wihon
and Bob Woodward
walreR On Peet Sett Writer
The Army has set up a special
team to assess the damage it may
have suffered as a result of the al-
leged spying by John Anthony Walk-
er Jr. and his cohorts, Defense De-
partment officials said yesterday,
confirming fears that compromises
of sensitive operations extend be-
yond the Navy.
For coding sensitive messages,
the Army, Air Force and Marine
Corps use equipment similar to the
devices that the Navy believes were
compromised to allow the Soviets
to read its top-secret communica-
tions for years, sources said.
The Army damage-assessment
team is working with the Navy's,
which has been painstakingly listing
secrets that the espionage ring was
in position to give the Soviets. This
two-service effort comes at a time
when some U.S. officials are warn-
ing that the damage to national se-
curity by the alleged Walker ring
ma extend to sensitive intelligence
activities as well as t o rations
of the entire U.. mi itary.
The prime area of concern, of-
ficials said, is what the Soviets
learned from intercepting sensitive
messages and breaking through
their codes, thanks to information
allegedly supplied by John Walker
and three other Navy men arrested
for espionage.
Adm. James D. Watkins, chief of
naval operations, said Tuesday the
biggest loss suffered by the Navy
was in communications. He said the
Navy "assumes" that the Soviets
broke the codes designed to scram-
ble messages transmitted through-
out the fleet by both teletype and
telephone.
WASHING 7 O:` F-IS7
3 June ~9E5
Watkins said the Navy is chang-
ing its secret communications gear
on an "accelerated basis," indicating
that at least some of it is similar to
that which John Walker repaired
and operated while in the Navy.
Navy officials said his most sensi-
tive jobs, which gave him access to
coding equipment, were at the
Navy crypto repair school in Val-
lejo, Calif., in 1963 and as a radio-
man cleared for top-secret commu-
nications on two nuclear-powered
missile-carrying submarines. He
was on the missile submarine USS
Andrew Jackson from 1962 to 1965
and on the USS Simon Bolivar from
1965 to 1967.
Watkins said the Navy's most
vulnerable period was from 1962 to
1969, when Walker was in a posi-
tion to pass tightly guarded secrets
about military communications gear
and submarine equipment to the So-
viets. Watkins said he believes that
the Navy "has bounded the prob-
lem" and will replace coding equip-
ment as part of the steps taken to
minimize future damage from the
secrets believed passed to the So-
viets.
Although Watkins did not discuss
what could have been compromised
by the Walker spy ring, other
sources said the coding machines
that could have been compromised
include the KW 7 and KW 26, used
to encode teletype messages. and
the KG 13 and KY 9, specialized en-
cryption equipment.
The National Security Agency
supplies other co mg gear tot e
Military services. Intelligence
sources said that, - although the
equipment Walker had detailed
knowledge of is decades old, its
components and operating charac-
teristics could help the Soviets_nen-
etrate current communications se-
curity.
Two former top U.S. intelligence
officials disagreed vester a in es-
timating the potential loss from
compromised communications.
One said the presumed commu-
nications compromise could have
extended throughout the govern-
ment, including top-secret intelli.
gence channels. He explained that
military services and government
M.encies use-. similar quipment to
coae and decde their messages.
The other former intelligence ex-
ecutive said the coding gear is con.-
scanty mo ie _ to prevent compro-
mise.lie sai that reconstructing
the machinery would not enable the
Soviets to break t e codes. They
would need a constant supply of key
cars, e a ded, and those are
changed continuously to foil at-
tempts at code-breaking.
However, the Walker spy ring
could have supplied such cards to
the Soviets in the 1960s, Navy of-
ficials said. That is one reason they
assume some of their codes were
broken.
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/01/13: CIA-RDP90-00965R000807470039-7