What Makes a Man Betray?

I was issued a top-secret clearance when joining the U.S. Army at age 18. Then later joining the Coast Guard, I was issued a top-secret clearance because of the work I was doing. During 1987, while stationed at Coast Guard Air Station Elizabeth City, North Carolina. I operated a now antiquated computer system known as the Automatic Digital Network (AUTODIN).

This computer system was encrypted to send top-secret, secret, and confidential messages across a computer teletype system. Most of the military used it. This was the kind of work I did in the mid-1980s to early 1990s. Most of the message traffic went to other military units, the Intelligence Coordination Center, or the National Security Agency in Washington, D.C.

This information was shared by the intelligence communities and military on strategic ship, aircraft, and personnel movements. We worked 12-hour shifts. Every morning, we would have to load two crypto cards in the computer system. These would be loaded into the AUTODIN system every day.

This system was used during the Cold War era. However, there was one man in the U.S. Navy who decided to betray his country and he had been selling crypto cards, and top-secret information to the Russians for at least 18 years.

Chief Warrant Officer, John A. Walker Jr., was described in a magazine article published by the U.S. Naval Institute, as this country’s “Most notorious naval spy.” It was suggested that he caused incalculable harm to our national security, and to this day, the intelligence community still does not know the full extent of the damage he caused.

John Walker also got his son Michael, a second-class petty officer in the U.S. Navy, and his brother, Arthur J. Walker, involved. There was a fourth member of the group, Jerry A. Whitworth, a former Navy radioman, involved as well. These four sold information to the Russians that were responsible for many American military men being killed during operations.

Author Pete Earley wrote a book about John Walker, called, “Family of Spies.” Earley quoted a Russian Admiral, Vitaly Yurchenko, who claimed the ring enabled the Soviets to decipher coded messages by the millions, and he claimed, that “If there had been a war, we would have won.”

A high-level defector from the Soviet intelligence agency called the Walker ring “The greatest case in KGB history.”

John Walker’s communication system with the Russians was ingenious. While Walker was stationed in Washington, D.C., he would take a package of information and drive out in the Maryland countryside until he came to a fence surrounding a farm. If no one was around he would pull off to the side of the road and hide the package in tall weeds next to a fence post. Then he would put a Pepsi can on the fence post. This alerted the Russians and let them know that no one was in the vicinity. So, the Russians would pick up the package and put another package containing $100,000 in the weeds. Then Walker would come back and pick up the package with the money in it.

However, if Walker drove out to the drop site and there was somebody in the vicinity, he would put a Mountain Dew can on the fence post to warn the Russians that he could not make the drop. 

This went on for years until he wanted to get his daughter involved who had just joined the U.S. Army. His wife found out what he was doing and turned him into the FBI.

In May of 1985, Walker drove from Norfolk, Virginia, to drop a package of Navy secrets intended for the KGB at the Maryland drop site. He was unaware the FBI was following him. The FBI made the pickup. Shortly afterward, agents took him into custody at gunpoint at a hotel.

The Walker ring quickly unraveled. He pleaded guilty in federal court in 1985, and in 1986, he was sentenced to life in prison. In return for his plea and for a pledge of cooperation, the government agreed to go easier on his son. The others in the ring were all given life sentences as well. Walkers’ son was sentenced to 25 years in prison, and he was paroled in 2000 at the age of 37.

After Walker’s arrest, my job changed dramatically the very next day. When I came on to do my shift, they had started what was called two-person integrity. This meant I had one crypto card to put in the computer and the chief had the other card to put in the computer. That was the way my job was until they came out with a modern way of communicating.

I could not imagine betraying my country that way, and involving my family as well. They all went to prison for their efforts. John Walker died on August 28, 2014, in a federal prison hospital in North Carolina. He was 77.