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John Walker worked as a Soviet spy while serving as communications specialist for the U.S. Navy. It is estimated that he helped the Soviet Union gain more than one million messages and compromised U.S. code security. He had already retired as a Navy officer when arrested in 1985. Other members of his ring included his sailor son Michael, his brother Arthur James Walker, who also served in the Navy, and his friend Jerry Alfred Whitworth, who trained in the Navy's satellite communications. Though Walker is thought to have won a high military rank from the Russians, he also became a member of the rascist Ku Klux Klan and the ultra anti-Communist John Birch Society.
Walker had begun selling secrets to the Soviets while at Norfolk in 1962 and created a spy ring which included at least two other members of the US Navy. Re-assigned to San Diego in 1969, Walker was put in charge of the radio school, training recruits in using communications equipment. Since he had now only had a limited access to secrets, he was able to supply his Soviet handlers with less substantial secrets and his monthly stipend from the KGB dropped from $4,000 a month to $2,000 a month. Retired in 1975 after twenty years in the navy, Walker had made an estimated $1 million from the Soviets for selling secrets for about seventeen years. He was convicted and sent to prison for life. Other members of his spy ring including his son Michael received a twenty-year sentence, Arthur Walker got three life terms and Jerry Alfred Whitworth received 365 years in prison. None of them, except Michael, the most pathetic of them all, expressed any regret for selling out their country. |
