John Walker - Walker/Whitworth Spy Ring CIA FBI NSA DOD FILES & Navy Film

John Walker - Walker/Whitworth Spy Ring CIA FBI NSA DOD FILES & Navy Film

2,822  pages of material related to John Walker and the Walker Family Spy case, also known as the Walker-Whitworth Spy Ring. Navy Chief Warrant Officer John Anthony Walker (1937-2014) was working for the US Navy as a communications specialist when he started spying for the Soviet Union.

1985 was referred to in the media as the "Year of the Spy," due to 8 major espionage cases breaking that year, including the high-profile case of a spy ring lead by John Anthony Walker, Jr.  Walker was a U.S. Navy Warrant Officer, later a private industry communications specialist from 1967 to 1985, who spied for the Soviet Union. For more than 17 years, Walker provided top cryptographic secrets to the Soviets, compromising at least one million classified messages. After retiring from the Navy, he also recruited three people with security clearances into his espionage ring: his brother Arthur, his son Michael, and his good friend Jerry Whitworth. Damage assessments found that the information passed by Walker and his confederates would have been devastating to the U.S. had the nation gone to war with the Soviets. The ring was broken-up due to a tip from Walker's ex-wife. He was arrested on May 20, 1985,  eventually pled guilty, and was sentenced to life in prison. Walker died in a federal prison medical center in Butner, N.C. on  August 28, 2014, at the age of 77.

John Anthony Walker Jr. (1937– 2014) was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania. At the age of 17, he was arrested for robbing a gas station, and subsequently confessed  to six burglaries. His older brother, a US Navy petty officer, urged the judge in his case to give him probation, in return his younger brother would join the Navy in order to gain discipline. Walker enlisted in the Navy in 1956.

In 1967 John Walker Jr. walked into the Soviet embassy in Washington, DC and offered to steal codes, code machines, and classified documents from the Navy for the initial price of $500 to $1000 per week. Over the next 17 years he revealed this to his wife Barbara, and recruited his friend Jerry Whitworth (a retired Naval communications specialist who had held a Top Secret clearance), his older brother Arthur (an antisubmarine warfare officer and instructor in the U.S. Navy and later a civilian contractor, also with access to classified information), and his son Michael (a seaman aboard the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz with access to classified documents) to aid him in his espionage activities. He was unsuccessful at recruiting his daughter Laura, who was serving in the U.S. Army.

KGB defector Vitaly Yurchenko in 1985 claimed that the KGB had "thousands" of people exploiting the material, and decrypted over a million messages, but this has never been confirmed by U.S. intelligence. Yurchenko "redefected" back to the Soviet Union in 1985.

Barbara at the urging of her daughter Laura, informed the FBI of her ex-husband’s dealings, not aware her son was also involved.  Mrs. Walker later told the Cape Cod Times that had she known her son was involved in the ring, she never would have gone to authorities with her information.

On May 9, 1985, Walker drove north on I-95 to the Maryland suburbs of Washington. Once there, he proceeded along a serpentine route, driving around for hours (the FBI estimated that the full route would have taken four hours) to the drop location on a country road outside of Poolesville, Maryland. There, just after 8:30 in the evening, by a telephone pole with a "No Hunting" sign on it, he deposited a package containing classified material.

The FBI swooped down and picked it up as soon as he was out of sight. But when he proceeded to the Soviet drop location, there was no package there (which would have contained the Soviet payments for Walker's previous drop material). Puzzled, he drove back to his own drop location, which was the alternate location for the Soviet material. He found neither the Soviet payment nor the package he had deposited there. He drove back and forth between the two locations several times, checking and rechecking. Then, puzzled and suspicious, he returned to his motel, a Ramada Inn in Rockville, Maryland.

At 3:30 a.m. an FBI agent posing as a hotel employee, phoned his room to tell him his vehicle had been damaged in the hotel's parking lot. When Walker reached the lot, he was arrested by FBI agents.

John Walker entered a plea and cooperated with authorities and agreed to testify against Whitworth in order to get a reduced sentence for his son. Walker would have been eligible for parole in May 2015.  Michel Walker received a 25-year sentence and was released in February 2000.

His older brother Arthur Walker was tired convicted and sentenced to three life sentences plus 40 years. He died imprisoned in 2014.

Jerry Whitworth was sentenced to 365 years in prison.

In a different case, after receiving a security awareness briefing in the wake of the Walker-Whitworth case ,  Jonathan Pollard's co-workers alerted the FBI, resulting in his arrest and conviction for espionage.


Documents in this collection include:

CIA FILES

170 pages of basic memos concerning the Walker-Whitworth Case damage, espionage/counter-intelligence security measures and newspaper clippings on the case.

 
FBI FILES

607 pages of FBI files created regarding the FBI espionage investigation of John Walker and members of the Walker-Whitworth Spy Ring. The FBI gave the case the codename WIND FLYER. Some pages in this collection were not released by the FBI until March 2017.

The first files date from May 1984. Either fear of discovery or a streak of conscious caused Jerry Whitworth to write an anonymous letter to the FBI, admitting to his role in the spy ring and general information about their activities. The FBI was instructed to reply to him through coded messages in the form of classified ads placed in the Los Angeles Times. The FBI laboratory attempted to trace the origin of the letters. The FBI consulted behavior specialists for advice on how to respond to Whitworth. Eventually Whitworth abandoned the communication and the FBI was not able to connect the letters to him, until after the Spy Ring was busted.

The Norfolk FBI Bureau was of the opinion that the allegations made by John Walker's ex-wife, Barbara Joy Crawley Walker, were serious enough to warrant further inquiry, but only after she passed a polygraph examination.

The files include memos on interviews of Walkers 's ex-wife and his daughter Laura. Laura details the specifics on how her father attempted to recruit her.

The files show the investigative techniques the Bureau used in this espionage investigation including court approved mail coverage, physical and electronic surveillance.

 
FBI PUBLICATION

The Sentinels of Freedom: The American People and the Defense of the Nation's Secrets (1987)

A 20-page U.S. Department of Justice/Federal Bureau of Investigation publication promoting the FBI's role in counter-intelligence.  Includes information and photographs related to the Walker-Whitworth Case.

 
SECURITY AWARENESS BULLETIN

212 pages of feature articles from the Security Awareness Bulletin, 1981 to 1989.

The Security Awareness Bulletin, from which the chapters in this volume have been drawn, was first published in May 1981 as a product designed for the defense contractor community. The Bulletin’s direct consumers, however, were the Facility Security Officers in industry and their counterparts in government: security officers, specialists, managers, and educators. Much coverage is given to the Walker-Whitworth spy case due to its impact on the security world.

 
NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY (NSA) MATERIAL

Two former TOP SECRET reports produced by the National Security Agency (NSA):

American Cryptology during the Cold War, 1945-1989 Book IV: Cryptologic Rebirth, 1981-1989  (1999)

A 233-page monograph produced by the National Security Agency. It includes a section on the "Year of the Spy," with a section on the Walker case, and reference to the Walker case throughout the entire report.


The Capture of the USS Pueblo and Its Effect on SIGINT Operations (1992)

A 251-page, monograph produced in 1992 by the National Security Agency. The report shows how the combination of equipment captured from the Pueblo and keys provided by the Walker-Whitworth Spy ring compromised U.S. signal security.  The monograph reports that the sudden Soviet acquisition of U.S. cryptographic equipment from the Pueblo in late January 1968, as well as the acquisition of U.S. keying material for the same machines from John Walker beginning in late December 1967 and later from Jerry Whitworth, gave the Soviets all they needed to read selected U.S. strategic and tactical encrypted communications for years.


DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE FILM

 The Walker Spy Ring - Lessons Learned (1989)

 A 30-minute film produced by the Naval Imaging Command.

The film begins with Michael Walker handcuffed in the United States Penitentiary, Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, who appears throughout the film, discussing espionage and his activities. In the film Michael says his father promised him  $5,000 a month. Michael sys in total he collected $1,000. Includes interviews of Navy associates of Jon Walker.

Abstract: There are always lessons to be learned so that what happened once, will not happen again. This presentation is intended to inform Department of the Navy personnel about the circumstances of espionage in the Walker/Whitworth case. Hopefully, by being more aware of what happened in this case, Department of the Navy personnel will be better prepared to detect and thwart similar incidents in the future.

The film's narrator reiterates, "You are required to report to the Naval Investigative Service any contact you may have with any citizen of a hostile country, the nations named on this list. This may be the most casual innocent type of contact, a Polish national you may meet at a party, a group of Soviet tourists you run into at a restaurant downtown. We and the NIS need to know this to determine if indeed this was a chance encounter. The second basic requirement anytime, any person, an associate, a superior, a friend anyone regardless of nationality, rank or status attempts to obtain sensitive or classified information without proper clearance or need to know that attempt must be reported. Remember the Walkers,  they sold their services. The person in question doesn't have to look like or act like a spy. Remember to all outward appearances John Walker,  Jerry Whitworth and the others were typical Americans. People like you and me, shipmates, neighbors, fellow watchstanders, friends and also traitors."

The original agency catalog description reads:

Audience: Naval Investigative Service (NIS) Counterintelligence Personnel, Senior Military Management, NIS Special agents, Senior Military Management.

Synopsis: Retired Navy warrant officer John Walker and others had been caught delivering Navy secret material to the Soviets. A crime that was committed for over seventeen years. A crime whose global consequences are still being probed, and seriously jeopardized U.S. naval plans and operations that still put at risk some of the missions the U.S. Navy is called upon to perform. The people who committed this crime are now incarcerated in a U.S. penitentiary. There are always lessons to be learned so that what happened once, will not happen again. This presentation is intended to inform Dept. of the Navy personnel about the circumstances of espionage in the Walker/Whitworth case. Hopefully, by being more aware of what happened in this case, Dept. of the Navy personnel will be better prepared to detect and thwart similar incidents in the future.

Purpose: National Security, NIS Foreign Counterintelligence courses, Senior Military Management courses.


CONGRESSIONAL DOCUMENTS

Counterintelligence and National Security Information Hearing Before a Subcommittee of the Committee on Government Operations, House of Representatives, Ninety-ninth Congress, First Session, June 17, 1985 - Hearing transcript


Meeting the Espionage Challenge: A Review of United States Counterintelligence and Security Programs: Report of the Select Committee on Intelligence, United States Senate (October 3, 1986)

Abstract:  At the beginning of the 99th Congress, the Select Committee on Intelligence initiated a comprehensive review of the capabilities of U.S. counterintelligence and security programs for dealing with the threat to the United States from Soviet espionage and other hostile intelligence activities... The Committee's review had barely begun when the arrests of John Walker and two of his relatives began to make 1985 the “Year of the Spy.” In June 1985, the Committee pledged that it would prepare a report to the full Senate at the earliest possible time. In light of this Committee's ongoing efforts, the Senate decided not to create a National Commission on Espionage and Security. On June 20, 1985, the Chairman of the Committee wrote to the President, saying, “You and we share an historic opportunity, both to dramatically improve U.S. counterintelligence and security and to demonstrate how Congress and the Executive can work to gather to achieve progress in sensitive intelligence areas.” The ensuing fifteen months have generated an amazingly sustained interest in counterintelligence and security on the part of both policymakers and the public. There have been over a dozen arrests for espionage, nearly all leading to guilty pleas or verdicts; Americans and West Germans with sensitive information have defected to the Soviet Union and East Germany; and Soviets with sensitive information have defected to the West, and in one major case then returned to the Soviet Union.
 

DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE STUDIES

1,085  pages of Department of Defense academic studies and research reports. Includes material produced by The Defense Personnel and Security Research Center (PERSEREC) created  in 1986,  it was founded specifically because of the espionage of John Walker and his ring of spies.

The Expanding Spectrum of Espionage by Americans, 1947 – 2015 (2017)

A technical report by Katherine L. Herbig, Ph.D., produced at the Defense Personnel and Security Research Center Office of People Analytics.

Abstract:  The report describes characteristics of 209 Americans who committed espionage-related offenses against the U.S. since 1947. Three cohorts are compared based on when the individual began espionage: 1947-1979, 1980-1989, and 1990-2015. Using data coded from open published sources, analyses are reported on personal attributes of persons across the three cohorts, the employment and levels of clearance, how they committed espionage, the consequences they suffered, and their motivations. The second part of the report explores each of the five types of espionage committed by the 209 persons under study. These include: classic espionage, leaks, acting as an agent of a foreign government, violations of export control laws, and economic espionage. The statutes governing each type are discussed and compared. Classification of national security information is discussed as one element in espionage. In Part 3, revisions to the espionage statutes are recommended in light of findings presented in the report.


Unauthorized Disclosure: Can Behavioral Indicators Help Predict Who Will Commit Unauthorized Disclosure of Classified National Security Information? (2017)

 A master thesis by Karen Elizabeth Sims Senior Security Specialist, Department of Homeland Security, Office of the Chief Security Officer, written at The Naval Postgraduate School.

Abstract:  Federal government security-cleared personnel have been disclosing federal government classified national security information, whether to a foreign government or the United States media, at an increasing rate since the 1980s. Can common personal or psychological characteristics or motivations be identified from historical cases that could indicate the likelihood of a current or potential federal employee to disclose national security information without authorization? Reasons for unauthorized disclosure range from financial, to “whistle-blowing,” to a desire to change international policy, to sympathy and strong ties with a foreign government. The focus of this research is on the behavioral characteristics that are similar or different between known, studied historical cases of personnel associated with the federal government who have disclosed classified information without authorization. Upon review of existing data, the prevalent behavioral characteristic of the cases is one of a disgruntled employee (ideology/ disillusionment/loyalty).

 
Probing the Ocean for Submarines A History of the AN/SQS-26 Long-Range, Echo-Ranging Sonar (2010)

 A report by Thaddeus Bell of Naval Sea Systems Command.

The effectiveness of passive sonar was to come to an end around 1989, with the development by the Soviets of quiet submarines, in part due to the efforts of John Walker’s spy ring. Admiral James D. Watkins, former CNO, credited Walker with having given the Soviets the information that they needed to improve their submarine construction technology to compete more effectively with U.S. technology.

 
An Analysis of the Systemic Security Weaknesses of the U.S. Navy Fleet Broadcasting System, 1967-1974, as Exploited by CWO John Walker (2005)

A U.S. Army Command and General Staff College theses by Major Laura Heath.

Abstract: CWO John Walker led one of the most devastating spy rings ever unmasked in the United States. Along with his brother, son, and friend, he compromised U.S. Navy cryptographic systems and classified information from 1967 to 1985. This research focuses on just one of the systems compromised by John Walker himself: the Fleet Broadcasting System (FBS) during the period 1967-1974, which was used to transmit all U.S. Navy operational orders to ships at sea. Why was the communications security (COMSEC) system so completely defenseless against one rogue sailor acting alone? The evidence shows that FBS was designed in such a way that it was effectively impossible to detect or prevent rogue insiders from compromising the system. Personnel investigations were cursory, frequently delayed, and based more on hunches than hard scientific criteria. Far too many people had access to the keys and sensitive materials, and the auditing methods were incapable, even in theory, of detecting illicit copying of classified materials. Responsibility for the security of the system was distributed among many different organizations, allowing numerous security gaps to develop. This has immediate implications for the design of future classified communications systems.
 

Espionage Against the United States by American Citizens 1947-2001 (2002)

A technical report commissioned by the Department of Defense from the Defense Personnel Security Research Center (TRW Systems), by Katherine L. Herbig, Ph.D. and Martin F. Wiskoff, Ph.D.

Abstract: Analyses of 150 cases of espionage against the United States by American citizens between 1947 and 2001 providing detailed data on the demographic and employment characteristics of American spies, and the means and methods they used to commit espionage, on their motivations, and on the consequences they suffered. Collected materials on the cases supplement the analyses conducted with a database that allows comparison of groups and the identification of trends. Factors highlighted include changes in espionage by Americans since the end of the Cold War and the impact of globalization and networked information systems on the practice of espionage.


Temperament Constructs Related to Betrayal of Trust (1992)

A study by Joseph P. Parker and Martin F. Wiskgff of BDM International for the Defense Personnel Security Research Center.

A literature review was conducted with the aim of defining the temperament constructs that could be related to trust betrayal and identifying a set of existing instruments for measuring these traits. Three constructs thought to exercise some influence on acts of espionage were identified: lack of self-control, risk-taking, and a sense of alienation. Studies in white-collar crime using temperament, biodata, and integrity instruments provided empirical evidence for the use of such tests in identifying potential betrayers within organizations. It is argued that white-collar crimes such as embezzlement may be used as surrogates in the study of espionage. The report addresses the "John Walker syndrome."

Abstract:

The current personnel security system relies heavily on a pre-clearance background investigation and continuing evaluation procedures that include ongoing monitoring and periodic reinvestigations. This system focuses primarily on identifying "life events" that may indicate that a person is not trustworthy or reliable and, therefore, should not be given access to classified information.

The system has evolved, however, without any clear understanding of those individual and situational factors that may predispose certain cleared individuals to commit espionage. In particular, we lack a theoretical framework for approaching this issue.

The current report is the first effort in a longer-range research program to develop such a framework for examining situational, position, and personality or temperament variables that are related to committing espionage. It addresses a construct, trust betrayal, within which espionage is a subset. Espionage represents violation of a fundamental trust between individuals and their organization and country. Thus, the research literature on significant trust violations has relevance to understanding the personality dynamics behind espionage.


U.S. Counterintelligence: From the Year of Intelligence to the Year of the Spy and Poised for the Future (1988)

A research report by Lt. Col Francis X. Taylor, U.S. Air Force Air University.

Abstract: This paper analyses the present state of U.S. Counterintelligence in the aftermath of the John Walker Family espionage case and the rash of espionage cases which led to the 'Year of the Spy'. A description of the history of Congressional/Executive Branch interaction on US Counterintelligence is used as a framework for developing the author's view that effective cooperation between these often-competing branches of government has resulted in significant improvements in CI capability. While the public view of the 'Year of the Spy:' was essentially negative, the reality was that the Year reflected a budding US Counterintelligence Community that grew steadily in capability as well as in public acceptance as an integral function of the US security apparatus.