SPY SUSPECT DELIVERED TO THE FBI

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00587R000100230060-2
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 5
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 27, 2011
• Sequence Number: 60
• Publication Date: May 26, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Approved For Release 2011/09/27: CIA-RDP91-00587R000100230060-2
3
ARTICLE -T RED
Spy Suspec
Delivered
To the FBI
Seaman Arrested
Aboard the Nimitz
1~
and Sharon LaFraniere
Washington Post Staff Wnters
Navy seaman Michael Lance
Walker, part of a father-son team
accused of spying for the Soviet
Union, arrived at Andrews Air
Force Base yesterday and was
turned over to FBI agents investi-
gating the case.
Walker, 22, who was arrested
Wednesday on board the USS Nim-
itz in Haifa, Israel, returned to the
United States about 2:30 p.m. yes-
terday on a Navy C-9 transport
plane that left Friday from Tel Aviv
and stopped overnight in Rota,
Spain.
Walker and his father, retired
Navy communications specialist
John Anthony Walker Jr., were ar-
rested last week on charges of pass-
ing secrets to the Soviet Union.
As a bevy of reporters and carr.-
era crews watched from a distance,
Michael Walker, wearing a white
shirt and blue pants, his wrists
handcuffed in front of him, was es-
corted down the back steps of the
plane by agents of the Naval Inves-
tigative Service.
He was met on the ramp by FBI
agents who displayed identification,
then surrounded Walker and led
him to the back seat of one of six
waiting cars..Earlier, agents carried
from the plane an orange plastic
bag, a clear plastic bag, a duffel bag
and two suitbags.
Walker, who entered the Navy in
1982 and had been serving on the
Nimitz since January 1984, was ta-
ken to the FBI's Baltimore office
yesterday afternoon. FBI spokes-
men would not say where he would
WASHitiC;TON POST
26 May 1985
be held before his scheduled hear-
ing before a federal magistrate in
Baltimore Tuesday.
"The whole bureau is not making
any comment," said Baltimore FBI
spokesman Rosemary Viscini.
His father, 47, is being held with-
out bond in the Baltimore city jail
pending a preliminary hearing Wed-
nesday in Baltimore federal court.
John Walker, a Norfolk private
detective who retired from the
Navy in 1976 after a 21-year ca-
reer, was arrested Monday at a
Rockville motel after FBI agents
allegedly observed him drop a shop-
ping bag filled with 129 classified
documents-including some from
the Nimitz-in a wooded area in
western Montgomery County. A
Soviet national observed near the
alleged "drop site" has left the coun-
try, official sources said.
Michael Walker, assigned to the
ship's operations office, had access
to the "burn bag" of secret docu-
ments on board the Nimitz, accord-
ing to Navy sources. They said the
"burn bag" might have contained
information about the movements
of U.S. and Soviet ships in the Med-
iterranean.
Acquaintances who knew Michael
Walker from his school days in Nor-
folk said the young man adored his
father and would do anything to
Please him. Michael Walker "really
respected his father. That was ob-
vious," said Robert Bastian, 21, a
former classmate.
He recalled one incident when
Michael Walker lost his usual calm
and panicked when his father's van,
borrowed for a camping trip, broke
down. Michael was apparently wor-
ried that his father would be dis-
pleased.
When his grades would come in,
he was afraid his dad would yell at
him," Bastian said.
Bill Abourjilie, 20, another for-
mer classmate, said that Michael
Walker "would probably do anything
.his dad asked him .... He wasn't
worried about anyone else, he was
just worried about pleasing his fa-
ther."
Michael graduated in 1982 from
Ryan High School, a small college-
preparatory school, where he spent
his,junior and senior years.
He joined the soccer team, main-
tamed grades of mostly Cs, and
struck up friendships with students
who shared his love of the beach
and surfing.
. His crowd was "maybe a little bit
freer than some of the others; but
you wouldn't have labeled him a bad
kid," said Bastian, who works in the
school office.
, .'Everybody's looking for this real
ulusual guy who kept to himself a
lot," said Chris Rumsey, a close
friend of Walker's. "He was just a
regular guy, that's what's so
weird."
Sources familiar with other es-
pionage cases say that this is the
first one they can remember that
involves a father and a son.
"There have been a lot of hus-
band-and-wife cases, like the Ro-
senber s" said George arver
Jr., a former CIA official. "But
can't recall a particular father-and-
son case."
,,Meanwhile, a Norfolk woman
said she has told the FBI that she
may have unwittingly participated
in dropping off documents to the
Soviets. According to a story in yes-
teiday's Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk,
R.K. Puma told the FBI that she
dropped off a bag that she believed
was full of trash for Walker at a site
in Rockville, Md., in 1977 for $500.
Puma said she deposited the plas-
ticbag by a utility pole some time
after midnight after following a
complicated series of instructions
that Walker gave her along with
photographs of designated sites in
the area. She said that she made the
drop after looking for two soda cans
along the side of the road, and was
toa?signal- each sighting by saving
over her CB radio; "This is mobile
1, proceed to the accident scene." If
she received no return message,
she said she was to continue.
Puma said she went along with
the plan to humor Walker, who em-
ployed her as an apartment house
manager, dismissing it then as "one
of the goofiest kinds of come-ons
that I've ever heard." She said she
kept the photographs and the in-
structions and turned them over to
the FBI on Friday.
RNEW
Approved For Release 2011/09/27: CIA-RDP91-00587R000100230060-2
 Approved For Release 2011/09/27: CIA-RDP91-00587R000100230060-2
While the two Walkers remain in
custody, other members of the fam-
ily remained silent in the glare of
publicity that has descended upon
them since the senior Walker's ar-
rest. The media attention intensi-
fied with the FBI's disclosure that
more arrests of Americans are ex-
pected in the case.
FBI officials said last week that
they are questioning relatives and
associates of John Walker.
Rita Walker, the wife of Walker's
brother, retired Navy lieutenant
commander Arthur Walker, de-
clined to respond to questions yes-
terday: "We're not making any com-
ments," she said from the doorway
of her ranch-style home in Virginia
Beach.
Barbara Joy Crowley Walker, the
ex-wife of accused spy John Walker
and the mother of Michael Walker,
could not be located. Navy sources
say she turned in her former husband.
The couple's daughter, Cynthia
Walker, 25, who lives in West Den-
nis, Mass., said yesterday she had
not been in contact with her moth-
er. "I lead a simple life trying to
make ends meet," she said. "I don't
need to be bothered by this. I don't
know anything."
In Norfolk, FBI agents kept
watch over John Walker's two-story
brick home at 8524 Old Ocean View
Rd. The house has been cordoned
off by yellow tape that says: "Police
Line-Do Not Cross."
FBI agents used sledgehammers
Friday in an unsuccessful search for
explosive devices that they feared
might have been planted by Walker
as a booby-trap. At one point during
the day, agents ordered neighbors
to evacuate their homes so they
wouldn't be hurt if there was an
explosion. But nothing was found,
officials said.
According to an affidavit filed in
federal court, FBI agents who
searched Walker's home after his
arrest Monday found correspond-
ence from his son Michael bragging
about having been named "Sailor of
the Month" and describing the "hun-
dred pounds" of materials that he
had collected from the Nimitz.
Last week FBI officials said
agents are searching for bank ac-
counts or money caches because
they believed that John Walker was
allegedly passing information to the
Soviets "for financial gain."
According to a divorce agree-
ment filed in state circuit court in
Norfolk, John and Barbara Walker
owned property and businesses in
Florida, South Carolina, North Car-
olina and Virginia when they were
divorced in 1976.
After he retired from the U.S.
Navy on July 31, 1976, Walker
went into business with his brother
Arthur, now 50, operating a Virgin-
ia Beach electronics firm called
Walker Enterprises, according to
court records of a lawsuit against
the company.
In the late 1970s, Walker went to
work as a detective for Wackenhut
Corp., court papers show. Then,
about four years ago, Walker
started his own private investiga-
ting firms: Confidential Reports,
Electronic De-Bugging and Asso-
ciated Detectives. All are located in
the same office in a Virginia Beach
office building.
Staff writers Molly Sinclair and
Chris Spolar contributed to this
report.
R.K. Puma told the FBI she dropped off a bag in Maryland for John Walker.
Approved For Release 2011/09/27: CIA-RDP91-00587R000100230060-2
 Approved For Release 2011/09/27: CIA-RDP91-00587R000100230060-2
^1 F [,?`;RED WASHINGTON POST
~~T1; ~ ?
ON F('" = R " 27 May 1985
Spy Suspect
Watched for
Months
3
Daughter and Ex- Wife
Tipped FBI, Source Says
By Molly Sinclair and Chris Spolar
a mgton nst Stiff Writers
The FBI began watching John Anthony
Walker Jr., accused along with his son of
spying for the Soviet Union, about three
months ago, a government source said yes-
terday.
The source said Walker was turned in by
his 25-year-old daughter, Cynthia, in addi-
tion to his former wife, Barbara Joy Crow-
ley Walker, 47.
Family members of John Walker, 47, a
retired Navy communications officer who
has been living in Norfolk and working as a
private detective, may have suspected
Walker's alleged espionage activities, the
source said.
In an effort to determine the extent of
the alleged activities of Walker and his son,
Michael Lance Walker, 22, both charged
with espionage, government agents have
"conducted lots of interviews and more in-
terviews will be done before this case is
through," the source said.
Barbara Walker, who was divorced from
John Walker in 1976, declined comment
yesterday about her former husband and
son when contacted in West Dennis, Mass.,
where she has been working as a checkout
clerk in The Christmas Tree Shops.
"I don't want to talk," she said.
Shortly afterward, she left her job and
went to the two-bedroom apartment where
she lives with her daughter, Cynthia, and
Cynthia's 8-year-old son, Tommy.
Their second-floor apartment is located
above a bookstore on the main street of
West Dennis, a tourist town on Cape Cod.
Cynthia Walker, one of three daughters
of John Walker and the sister of Michael
Walker, also declined comment. She works
in a dentist's office.
The Walker family includes five brothers,
including John and two others with military
service, as well as in-laws and grown chil-
dren in several cities.
John Walker served as a communications
officer with "top secret crypto" clearance
before retiring from the U.S. Navy in 1976.
For the last several years, he has operated
three detective companies, one of which
specialized in electronic debugging.
Walker kept an airplane, a house-
boat and a van loaded with electron.
ic equipment.
John Walker's arrest at a Ramada
Inn in Rockville came shortly after
FBI agents allegedly saw him drop a
shopping bag filled with 129 clas-
sified documents, including some
from the Nimitz, in a wooded area
in western Montgomery County.
A Soviet national seen near the
alleged "drop site" has left the coun-
try, officials said.
Subsequent to Walker's arrest,
about 20 FBI agents searched his
home at 8524 Old Ocean View Rd.
in Norfolk and uncovered material
that led to the arrest of his son, Mi-
chael, a seaman serving aboard the
Nimitz, according to the criminal
complaint filed by the FBI in federal
court in Baltimore.
Government officials now say
that the case has turned out to be
far more significant than originally
suspected at the time of the first
arrest.
Michael Walker, 22, has been
serving as a yeoman third class
aboard the nuclear aircraft carrier
the Nimitz for the last 17 months.
Before enlisting in the Navy in De-
cember 1982, he lived with his fa-
ther in Norfolk.
A source familiar with the Walker
case said that Barbara and Cynthia
Walker contacted the FBI about
three months ago. The source said
a telephone tip is not sufficient in a
case like this.
"They would have to go in , and
make a written statement ... and
sign it ... for something this seri-
ous," the source said.
The FBI office closest to the
West Dennis area is in Hyannis,
where the agency has two or three
agents assigned to a small office,
the source said.
While Barbara and Cynthia Walk-
er kept silent yesterday, the West
Dennis townspeople who know
them provided some details about
the quiet life they have had, despite
the recent publicity surrounding the
family.
Krista Booker, 22, who works at
The Christmas Tree Shops, said
yesterday that Barbara Walker had
been working there about a year
and was "really nice ... friendly to
everybody."
Yesterday, a busy day for the
town's tourist trade, The Christmas
Tree Shops was jammed with cus-
tomers buying an assortment of
Christmas ornaments, nautical
knickknacks and pottery. Barbara
Walker, wearing the store's green
apron, was one of about six workers
manning cash registers. Another
half-dozen workers helped bag pur-
chases for customers.
Residents said Barbara Walker
moved into the apartment with her
daughter in January. They pay
about $350 a month for their sub-
sidized housing, according to neigh-
bors.
Tom Bayek Jr., 20, the cook at
The Village Deli down the street
from the Walkers' apartment, said
it was common knowledge in West
Dennis that espionage charges had
been filed against Barbara Walker's
husband.
Bayek said the espionage charges
against Michael Walker may have
come as a surprise to Barbara Walk-
er. "I think she had to be surprised,"
Bayek said. "She talked highly of
her son in the Navy. She was proud
of him."
There has been little or no con-
tact between John Walker and his
daughter Cynthia, residents here
said. "Tommy's never seen his
grandfather-he says that all the
time," Bayek said.
Michael Walker's wife, Rachel;
22, who lives in Virginia Beach;
went to Baltimore this weekend in
an effort to see her husband. It
was not known yesterday whether
Rachel made the trip on her own
or was summoned by the FBI , "4r
whether she was permitted to talj
to her husband.
Staff writer Sharon LaFraniere
contributed to this report.
Approved For Release 2011/09/27: CIA-RDP91-00587R000100230060-2
 Approved For Release 2011/09/27: CIA-RDP91-00587R000100230060-2
WASHINGTON POST
25 May 1985
Accused Spy Had Access to Nimitz's
`Burn Bag'
By Ruth Marcus and Molly Sinclair
Washington Post Staff Writers
Accused U.S. spy Michael Lance
Walker had access to a so-called
"burn bag" of secret documents on
the nuclear aircraft carrier USS
~ Nimitz, Navy sources disclosed yes-
terday as officials continued to in-
vestigate a case of espionage they
said may have been more far more
damaging to national security than
originally suspected.
The most sensitive documents on
a carrier generally are shredded,
sources said, but other classified
material is set aside to be burned.
Documents in the burn bag could
contain information on the move-
ments of American and Soviet
ships.
While Naval officials and intelli-
gence analysts agree that the burn
bag might have held sensitive infor-
mation, they say that far more dam-
aging material may have been pro-
vided to the Soviets by Michael's
father, John Anthony Walker Jr.
The elder Walker, who was ar-
rested Monday, had access to infor-
mation about the movements of
both U.S. and Soviet submarines
and other ships as a radio officer on
Polaris submarines and as a com-
munications officer for the Naval
Submarine Force, the Amphibious
Force and the Naval Surface Force
in Norfolk, beginning in the early
1960s. He had "top secret crypto"
clearance before he retired.
Both father, 47, and son, 22,
have been charged with espionage.
Navy sources said Barbara Joy
Crowley Walker, John Walker's ex-
wife and Michael Walker's mother,
turned in her former husband, who
had been working as a private de-
tective in Norfolk since his retire-
ment from the Navy in 1976. Bar-
bara Walker, who is believed to be
living on Cape Cod, could not be
reached for comment.
John Walker, was arrested in the
Ramada Inn in Rockville after fed-
eral agents saw him dropping off a
bag of documents in Poolesville in
western Montgomery County. Mi-
chael Walker was arrested aboard
the Nimitz on Wednesday. and he is
scheduled to return to the United
States today. Navy officials said
Walker will be turned over to the
FBI after he arrives at Andrews Air
Force Base this afternoon.
Sources said yesterday that a
Soviet national, spotted Sunday
near the Poolesville site where
agents recovered the classified doc-
uments, has left the United States.
The senior Walker, who is being
held without bond in the Baltimore
city jail, yesterday asked a federal
judge to bar the FBI, Davy and oth-
er officials from revealing nonpublic
information about the case.
But U.S. District Judge Norman
P. Ramsey said he would impose
the order only if U.S. Attorney J.
Frederick Motz agreed. Such a lim-
itation, Ramsey said, "has all the
earmarks of a gag order."
John Walker's attorney, federal
public defender Fred Warren Ben-
nett, said after the hearing that he
did not expect Motz to agree to the
order, and that he would appeal the
ruling to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court
of Appeals, perhaps as early as
Tuesday.
FBI officials said earlier this
week that they believed that the
motivation for the alleged espio-
nage was financial gain.
Michael Walker had "secret"
clearance aboard the Nimitz, where
he held a clerical position in the
ship's operations department. Walk-
er's "secret" clearance was higher
than "confidential" but lower than
"top secret" clearance, officials said.
Michael Walker was assigned to
destroy materials up to the level of
"secret" in the "burn bag," Navy
sources said.
Retired Rear Adm. Eugene Car-
roll, deputy director of the Center
for Defense Information, a Wash-
ington policy group, said that Walk-
er's "burn bag" duty would permit
him to see a much wider variety of
material than a normal seaman.
Among the items found in a
search of Walker's bunk area on the
Nimitz was a box containing about
15 pounds of classified material,
according to an FBI affidavit filed in
federal court in Lultimore.
Carroll, whose organization is
often critical of the military, said
the most damaging information ac-
cessible to Walker would be intel-
ligence about Soviet ship move-
ments in the Mediterranean, par-
ticularly submarine locations.
It would be helpful, he said, for
the Soviets to know how much the
United States knows about the
movement of Soviet. submarines so
they could develop tactics to elude
detection.
The elder Walker knew even
more. He could have Passed on
"snot information about where ac-
tual U.S. ships were deployed at
any given moment," according to
George A. Carver Jr., a former
high-level official in the CIA and
now a senior fellow at Georgetown
University's Center for Strategic
and International Studies. John
Walker's alleged involvement was
"potentially quite serious" for the
United States, he said.
Carver said that information al-
legedly passed by Walker could
have been used by the Soviets to
make up their own fake communi-
cations.
Forgeries, he said, are "more
plausibly done if you know ... the
salutation used and the way that the
prose is used."
nf~t on on submarines is
considered "perhaps the most sen-
sitive intelligence information that
the United States has," said Capt.
James T. Bush, a retired submarine
commander who also works at the
Center for Defense Information.
"The backbone of the deterrent
philosophy is that the missile-faring
submarines are invulnerable," Bush
said.
Con11nue
Approved For Release 2011/09/27: CIA-RDP91-00587R000100230060-2
 Approved For Release 2011/09/27: CIA-RDP91-00587R000100230060-2
"If that philosophy is changed,
then we have to change a whole
way of doing things."
According to Navy sources, at-
tack submarines routinely lie in
wait at ambush spots under the sea
to pick up the trail of Soviet missile
and attack submarines. The U.S.
attack submarines are quieter thin
their Soviet counterparts, enabling
them to tag after the Soviet boats
at a distance without being heard.
In a war, the United States would
try to sink Soviet submarines be-
fore they could go from port to the
open ocean, Navy sources said.
This tactic is part of the "barrier
strategy" developed over the years
to deal with the Soviet undersea
threat. The secret papers could
compromise some of the basic el-
ements of this strategy, according
to the sources, and prompt the So-
viets to develop countermeasures.
"The elder Walker was the really
grievous loss to our intelligence
community, tragically so at the
time," Carroll said.
Assuming that the information
was sent promptly to the Soviets,
he said, "it would have told them
everything about our capabilities ',at
the time."
2
Staff writers Rick Atkinson, Don ?
Oberdorfer, Paul W. Valentine and
George C. Wilson contributed to this
report.
Approved For Release 2011/09/27: CIA-RDP91-00587R000100230060-2