Ex-Wife Explains Delay on Spy Charges : Says She Put Off Doing What She ‘Believed In’ to Protect Family

The ex-wife of accused spymaster John Walker said she was doing what she “believed in” when she tipped off the FBI to her husband’s activities, exposing what one authority today called the biggest Soviet espionage ring found in the United States in 30 years.

FBI agents, meanwhile, hunted for a fifth person believed to be a member of the family-and-friend operation accused of penetrating Navy security on both coasts and passing classified data to the Soviets for 20 years. (Story on Page 5.)

On the verge of tears, Barbara Joy Crowley Walker told the Cape Cod Times in an interview published today that she “did what I believed in” when she and a daughter, Laura Walker Snyder, went to the FBI in Boston several months ago to expose her estranged husband and her seaman son, Michael Lance Walker, 22.

Court documents released earlier alleged that John Walker at one time tried to persuade his daughter, an Army communication specialist, to join his clandestine operations.

Barbara Walker said she delayed going to authorities to protect her family, which she called her “first priority.”

“Why in the name of all that’s holy did I wait so long?” asked Barbara Walker, who was divorced from Walker nine years ago. “You have the answer. It is because of what is happening (now) to my family and my children.”

She said that since the public disclosures her family has been “harassed” by the news media about the arrests.

Law enforcement officials said that other suspects are being investigated and that the case is far from closed.

“It’s one of the most extraordinary espionage cases I’ve ever seen,” said one veteran law enforcement official, who declined to be named. “I’m not sure that anybody can really predict when it’s going to end.”

The official said the case appeared to unveil the biggest U.S. spy operation since the celebrated case of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, executed in 1953 for smuggling secrets about atomic weapons to the Soviet Union. Five people were convicted in that case.