Was Devastated to Find Son Involved After She Tipped Off FBI : Ex-Wife Says Walker Spied to Save Bar

Barbara Crowley Walker, whose tip to the FBI about her former husband led authorities to what they now call the largest espionage ring in decades, said Wednesday that John A. Walker Jr. began spying for the Soviet Union in the late 1960s to get money to shore up a failing South Carolina restaurant and bar in which he had invested.

And, through the subsequent years--including almost a decade of their 19-year marriage--Walker, a veteran Navy communications specialist, continued to sell U.S. military secrets to Soviet agents for “well over $100,000,” she alleged in an interview with The Times.

Speaking softly as she sat barefoot on a sofa in her modest apartment above a religious bookstore in this aging Cape Cod resort town, Mrs. Walker said that she agonized for years before going to the FBI late last November with the story of Walker’s clandestine activities.

Even then, she said, she never would have gone to the authorities if she had known that her youngest child, Michael, would be caught in the FBI’s widening net and charged with espionage along with his father.

“I love Michael so much,” Mrs. Walker said of her only son, a 22-year-old sailor. “I love my country, but I never could have brought myself to do it if I had known he was part of this thing. I was devastated when I heard Michael was involved.”

John Walker, a 47-year-old retired Navy chief warrant officer, was arrested on May 20 after, FBI agents said, he attempted to deliver to a Soviet agent classified documents he had received from Michael, who served on the aircraft carrier Nimitz. In addition to his son, Walker’s 50-year-old brother, Arthur, and a California man described as John Walker’s best friend also have been arrested and charged with espionage.

On Tuesday, John Walker and his son pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Although she insisted that she had known nothing of Michael’s alleged role, Mrs. Walker said she had learned from her daughter, Laura, that John Walker had tried to enlist Laura as a spy in 1979, when the daughter was an Army communications operator stationed at Ft. Polk, La. “Laura told me about it soon after it happened,” she said. She would not give other details or say where her 25-year-old daughter now lives.

Federal authorities have said that evidence provided by Mrs. Walker and Laura was instrumental in cracking open what they have described in affidavits as a spy ring reaching deep into U.S. naval operations worldwide, especially involving sensitive communications, for as far back as 20 years.

Mrs. Walker said in the interview that she had known of her husband’s espionage activities since the late 1960s and that one day she had picked up the telephone in their Norfolk, Va., home to alert the FBI.

“But I just couldn’t make the call,” she said. “I thought, ‘How can I possibly survive with four kids if John is taken away?’ ”

But several months ago--more than eight years after their marriage ended in divorce--Mrs. Walker said she sought out FBI agents in nearby Hyannis, Mass., to tell them of John Walker’s activities.

“I wanted to protect my children,” she said. “Was I seeking vengeance? Well, a part of me wanted to see him get what he deserved.”

Mrs. Walker, 47, dressed casually in a red tank top and black slacks, said that she agreed to the interview in the hope of halting the “bothersome attention” that has been focused on her by the news media since the case became public last month.

“Even now,” she said, “some camera crews are focusing on my windows from across the street.”

In the 70-minute interview, Mrs. Walker refused to disclose what information she had given to the FBI, saying that the bureau had asked her to remain silent.

She was also guarded in discussing the money that she said her husband had received from the Soviets. She did, however, say she knew of one instance in which her husband received $35,000 and that the total was “well over $100,000.”

“I feel certain that he spent it all,” she said. “John always liked a life style higher than he could afford--boats, airplanes and international travel.”

She said she believed that the need for money to prop up his investment in a restaurant and bar in South Carolina--a business that she said eventually folded--led Walker to begin spying for the Soviets.

“But he also loved the glamour of being a spy,” she said. “He loved being one step ahead of other people--of walking down the street and knowing something no one else knew.”

She described Arthur Walker, her former brother-in-law who is accused of giving Navy secrets to John Walker knowing that they would be delivered to the Soviets, as “a real sweet guy.”

But she said she believed that Arthur’s alleged membership in the ring did not result from John’s persuasion. “I won’t tell you any more than that,” she said.

In Norfolk, when told of Mrs. Walker’s comment, one of Arthur Walker’s court-appointed lawyers, Sam Meekins, said, “I think that statement will be very much in issue in this case. Her credibility will be an issue in this case. I am not satisfied at all that there was any participation (by Arthur Walker) in any conduct contravening the espionage statute.”

Mrs. Walker, who shares her apartment with her daughter Cynthia and her 8-year-old grandson, Tommy, said that her marriage ended in divorce in 1976 because John Walker was a “domineering, manipulative, self-centered man.”

“John was not a caring man,” she said. “He was always trying to maneuver and manipulate people, including the kids. But Michael absolutely adored him. They were very close.”

She said that Walker showed little affection for his daughters--refusing, for instance, to go to one’s college graduation--but devoted all his attention to his son. “Michael would do anything his father asked of him,” she said.

“Today, Michael won’t even see me,” she added, weeping as she described her trip to a Baltimore jail late last month in the hope of visiting her son. But she added: “I can understand that.”

Mrs. Walker said that, until the espionage trial is held--a trial in which she could be a key government witness--she plans to continue living in this Cape Cod resort and working as a cashier in a large souvenir and gift shop down the street.

“I just can’t see my life after that,” she said.

Mrs. Walker did not disclose whether she had sought immunity from any possible prosecution in return for her tipping off the FBI about her former husband’s activities, but legal sources said that the federal government rarely brings charges against informants who call its attention to a felony, albeit belatedly.

The Walkers were married in 1957--early in Walker’s Navy career when both were in their late teens. She filed for divorce in 1976, citing irreconcilable differences, and he did not contest the divorce.

According to legal papers filed in Norfolk, Walker agreed to pay $500 a month for support of the three younger children--Cynthia, Laura and Michael. Their oldest daughter, Margaret, now 26 and an artist in Norfolk, was considered an adult at the time. There was no alimony, but Walker agreed to pay Barbara’s attorney fees and give her $10,000 in cash.

Soon after the divorce, Mrs. Walker moved back to her native New England, renting a house in Skowhegan, Me., where her brother lived. Her sister-in-law, Pat Crowley, said that she soon went to work there as a cementer in a shoe factory. “We helped her get the job a few months after she came here,” Mrs. Crowley recalled in a telephone interview. “She was on welfare and got food stamps, but she couldn’t stand to live off the taxpayers.

“She worked terribly hard, she killed herself,” Mrs. Crowley added. “She would be at the factory for nine hours, and then came home to cook dinner, then do the laundry. Some nights we would go over to see her and she would fall asleep at 8 o’clock she was so exhausted.”

Laura, the Walker’s youngest daughter, was graduated from high school in 1978 and enlisted in the Army that summer--about the same time that Michael returned to Norfolk to live with his father and finish high school there.

According to military records, Laura was trained as a communications equipment operator with a specialty in radios that broadcast and receive on different frequencies at the same time. She was stationed at Ft. Polk for most of her 18 months in the military, serving as a private first class with a “secret” clearance.

Her father’s alleged attempt to recruit Laura into the spy ring was first disclosed earlier this week in an FBI affidavit filed in San Francisco, where Jerry Whitworth, a 45-year-old retired Navy communications specialist described as John Walker’s best friend, was arrested for conspiracy to give Navy secrets to Walker.

Mrs. Walker would not discuss why or how the alleged recruitment took place, saying, “Laura told me why but I won’t give you the reason.” She explained her refusal to disclose Laura’s whereabouts by saying that she wanted to protect her. “So far, Laura is my only daughter not bothered by the press, and I want to keep it that way,” she said.

Staff writer Gaylord Shaw in Washington contributed to this story.