Walker, Son Admit Guilt in Spy Case : John Will Get Life, Michael 25 Years; Agree to Cooperate

A federal judge accepted plea agreements Monday from John A. Walker Jr. and his sailor son, Michael Lance, that call for the elder Walker, mastermind of a spy ring that sold Navy communications secrets to the Soviet Union, to receive life imprisonment and his son to receive a 25-year term.

In pleading guilty to conspiracy and espionage charges before U.S. District Judge Alexander Harvey II, the two men agreed to “cooperate completely” with federal officials seeking to assess the damage they caused. And they agreed to testify at next January’s trial of former Navy communications expert Jerry A. Whitworth of Davis, Calif., another accused member of the ring.

Information furnished by John Walker “should be of great, incalculable value to the government,” Harvey said.

Will Seek Limit

But in San Francisco, Whitworth’s defense attorney, James Larson, said he would seek a court order to limit any testimony by John Walker in Whitworth’s trial. Walker’s plea arrangement “changes the complexion of the case against Whitworth,” Larson said.

Although Judge Harvey postponed formal sentencing indefinitely, pending “the nature and scope of cooperation” offered by the Walkers, he signaled that he would approve the Justice Department’s recommendation of a life term for John Walker, 48, and 25 years for his son, who is 22.

Under a life term, John Walker technically would be eligible for parole in 10 years. But attorneys for both sides said that parole may be unlikely at that date in view of his crime.

Michael Walker would be eligible for parole in slightly more than eight years, or a third of his term.

Not Plea Bargains

Justice Department officials insisted that the agreements were not “plea bargains” because of the stiff sentences they included. Assistant U.S. Atty. Michael Schatzow said the government accepted the guilty pleas because it needed to know “what was broken and what must be fixed” as a result of the documents that Walker provided his Soviet contacts.

Fred W. Bennett, the federal public defender in Baltimore who represented John Walker, said that his client’s chief motivation in pleading guilty was to obtain a less-than-life sentence for his son, “whose future he cares more about than his own.”

“The only thing we had to offer Mr. Walker was something for his son,” Schatzow said.

By pleading to multiple counts, each man avoided the possibility of receiving consecutive sentences, and the possibility that a judge could impose heavy fines of $250,000 on them in addition to the prison terms. Moreover, the government agreed not to prosecute John Walker for income tax evasion in connection with his undetermined illicit profits from spying, an activity that prosecutors said began in 1968, eight years before he retired as a Navy warrant officer.

No Navy Proceedings

Under the agreement, neither man can be recalled to active duty by the Navy, where further legal proceedings, such as courts-martial for espionage, might have been instituted.

Michael Walker, who acknowledged that he had provided his father with 20 pounds of classified documents while serving aboard the nuclear-powered carrier Nimitz, was recruited as a spy by his father soon after joining the Navy in 1982, prosecutors said.

Neither John nor Michael Walker showed any emotion during their pleadings. But Michael’s wife, Rachel, wept quietly as she sat two rows behind the defendants. John Walker’s oldest daughter, Margaret, 27, also was present in the courtroom.

Needed Money for Bar

Reading from typed pages, Schatzow told the court that Barbara Crowley Walker, the former wife of John Walker, went to the FBI last November to tell of a 17-year spying career by her former husband. She said it began when he needed money to shore up a failing bar he owned in South Carolina, according to Schatzow.

He said that Mrs. Walker, from time to time, saw maps and other paraphernalia in their home, which indicated his espionage activities, along with more than $35,000 he had received from the Soviet Union. On one occasion, Schatzow said, the defendant struck his wife in the face when she called him a “traitor” and admonished her to “be quiet so the neighbors won’t hear.”

John Walker’s older brother, Arthur J., 50, a retired Navy lieutenant commander, was convicted of seven counts of espionage last August after prosecutors rejected his offer to plead guilty to a single count of spying. He is awaiting sentencing and faces a maximum punishment of three life terms plus 40 years and a $40,000 fine.