FBI Says Spy Ring Goes Beyond Father, Son; More Arrests Likely

The retired Navy man who allegedly sought to provide Soviet agents with U.S. secrets headed a spy ring that extended beyond his son, already arrested aboard the nuclear aircraft carrier Nimitz, an FBI official said Thursday.

“We know the spy ring to be larger than the two,” Assistant FBI Director William Baker said in an interview. Further arrests are expected of associates or relatives of the father, John Anthony Walker Jr. of Norfolk, Va., Baker added.

FBI agents have questioned a brother and a stepbrother of John Walker, both with Navy service, but Baker and FBI officials in Norfolk refused to say whether they are suspects.

Documents Recovered

Agents arrested Walker, a 47-year-old retired chief warrant officer, after tailing him Monday to a reputed “drop site” in suburban Maryland, where they recovered a bag containing 129 classified Navy documents--some apparently from the Nimitz. Based on information provided by Walker’s former wife and one of his three daughters, the FBI believes he had been supplying secrets to the Soviets for as long as 18 years.

The son, 22-year-old Michael Lance Walker, was arrested Wednesday and placed in the Nimitz’s brig after incriminating letters he wrote were recovered at his father’s home and Navy investigators found a 15-pound box of classified documents hidden next to his bunk. He will be brought back to face federal charges in Baltimore, where his father is being held, a Justice Department spokesman said.

Meanwhile, a Soviet Embassy official whom the FBI observed near the “drop site” was suddenly recalled to Moscow on Thursday without explanation, government sources said. FBI sources earlier had said that they were doubtful they could bring legal action against the unnamed Soviet because he was not observed in an overt act of espionage.

Although officials said that they are still uncertain how much damage may have been done to national security, some expressed concern privately that the younger Walker may have gained access to top-secret U.S. intelligence on the movements of Soviet submarines.

Son Had Limited Access

But one Defense Department official, requesting anonymity, said that seaman Walker’s “secret” clearance was not high enough to give him access to such intelligence aboard the Nimitz.

“He would normally know only about surface vessels, not submarines,” this official said. “But he might have gleaned information improperly from the Nimitz’s combat information center. We’re trying to determine this.”

Such information would be useful to the Soviets for what it demonstrated about the accuracy of U.S. surveillance techniques, the Pentagon official said. The younger Walker’s letters to his father also said he had taken unspecified photographs and forwarded them for development.

Because John Walker retired from the Navy in mid-1976, after nearly 21 years of service, and Michael Walker did not enter the service until late 1982, the sources of any secrets provided in that six-year span have not been established, officials said.

‘Formidable Task’

Determining the value of any such material is “a formidable task” that the Navy will do by “going back to the late 1960s and taking it from there,” Baker said.

Walker’s brother who has been questioned in the case is retired Lt. Comdr. Arthur James Walker, 50, who left the Navy on July 1, 1973, after serving as a submarine gunnery and engineering officer off the East Coast. Walker’s stepbrother, 24-year-old Gary Richard Walker, who the Navy says is an aviation electronics technician assigned to a mine countermeasure squadron at Norfolk, also has been questioned.

According to Baker, the FBI is looking for bank accounts or places where John Walker may have kept payoffs from the alleged espionage. Since leaving the Navy, Walker has operated a private security business in Norfolk, which includes protecting corporate clients from electronic bugging.

Business ‘Prosperous’

Laurie Robinson, a partner in Walker’s firm, said: “I know he wasn’t having any financial troubles. It’s been a very prosperous business. In fact, we just purchased some new vehicles and a new boat.”

Baker said that a Manila envelope that the senior Walker dropped during his arrest had provided the FBI with “a wealth of information,” including photographs, maps and instructions on “how to clear and fill a drop site.” The instructions were written in English, “presumably by the Soviets,” he added.

In addition to providing evidence in the Walker case, these documents are important to the FBI for what they reveal about espionage methodology--information the agency had not obtained before, Baker said.