Walker Reportedly Invited Navy Divers on Trips

Accused spymaster John A. Walker Jr. several times reportedly used his houseboat to take members of an elite Navy commando unit on diving expeditions in Willoughby Bay here, according to naval personnel who declined to join the outings.

This disclosure came Tuesday as the trail of revelations about the former naval communication specialist’s background took another bizarre twist: While Walker allegedly was spying for the Soviet Union, he also was trying to recruit sailors into the Ku Klux Klan. At the same time, he apparently was spreading word that he was an undercover FBI agent who had infiltrated the klan.

The government has charged Walker with being the leader of a spy ring that included his son, Michael Lance, 22, a sailor on the aircraft carrier Nimitz; his 50-year-old brother, Arthur J., a retired Navy lieutenant commander, and his longtime friend, Jerry A. Whitworth, a 45-year-old retired Navy radioman. FBI affidavits have alleged that Walker had funneled military secrets to Soviet agents during the last 20 years.

Hired Navy Personnel

Government sources said FBI agents are looking into Walker’s association with civilian and military personnel in more than half a dozen locations across the country--including Norfolk, where the Navy’s Atlantic Fleet is headquartered. Walker, who became a private detective in nearby Virginia Beach after retiring as a chief warrant officer in 1976, sometimes hired Navy personnel as part-time investigators for his detective agency, sources have said.

Susanne Rachkiss, a Navy corpsman who lives in an apartment building next to the pier where Walker kept his houseboat, said in an interview that several times last year Walker took groups of young men who identified themselves as Navy SEALS into the waters adjoining the Norfolk naval base and naval air station.

“There would be five to six people at a time,” she said. “He would put up the diving flag, and they would go out into the bay.”

Rachkiss, a 22-year-old native of Bloomburg, Pa., said Walker often invited her and other Navy personnel who lived in the Sea-Shire apartments to join him on the boat but that to her knowledge none ever took him up on the offers.

‘Weird Atmosphere’

“He was friendly, very friendly,” she said, “but I didn’t trust him. There was just this weird atmosphere about him. Nobody went out with him (on the boat) except the people he brought along.”

She said she was told by Walker and the men themselves that the divers were SEALS, and she added she was amazed, because “SEALS are such classified people.”

Lt. Cmdr. Kenneth Satterfield, a Navy public affairs officer, said that two teams of 100 SEALS--who derive their name from the fact that they operate on sea, air and land--are assigned to Special Warfare Group 2 at the Naval Amphibious Base at Little Creek, Va., near Norfolk. The Navy’s other SEALS are assigned to Special Warfare Group 1 at San Diego.

Satterfield said he had no knowledge of whether Walker took parties of SEALS on diving trips, but added: “It is not the policy or training doctrine of Special Warfare Group 2 to conduct any diving training off craft belonging to civilian personnel.”

Security Clearances

Asked what security clearances SEALS hold, he would only say that “one has a security clearance commensurate with his mission.”

Walker’s role as a recruiter for the klan was first disclosed by the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith, which closely monitors activities of hate groups, and subsequently confirmed by klan officials.

Irwin Suall, director of fact-finding for the ADL, suggested that Walker’s klan activities may have been a cover for his alleged espionage. “His serving as organizer for the klan would give him an opportunity to get close to active-duty sailors and pump them for information,” he said.

Debbie Aiken, host of a radio talk show on which Walker appeared in 1979 and identified himself as the klan’s state organizer, recalled that afterward she was told--but could never confirm--that Walker also had described himself to others as an FBI agent working undercover against the klan.

However, FBI files show that Walker never served as a bureau informant or in any undercover capacity, according to government sources who described as “absolutely false” any suggestion that Walker worked for or with the FBI in investigating klan activities.

Meanwhile, Pamela K. Carroll, Walker’s girlfriend who was dismissed Monday from her job as a Norfolk police officer, said her firing was unfair because she had fully cooperated with investigators and that “the authorities are convinced of my lack of complicity and my innocence.”