Spy Arthur Walker Gets 3 Life Terms, $250,00 Fine : Too Serious for ‘Slap on Wrist’

Retired Navy Lt. Cmdr. Arthur J. Walker was sentenced today to three life terms plus 40 years in prison and a $250,000 fine for his role in an espionage ring operated by his younger brother, John A. Walker.

“I can’t treat this as a slap on the wrist case,” U.S. District Judge J. Calvitt Clark Jr. said. “The evidence is all to the contrary.”

Clarke said the sentences will run concurrently.

Attorneys for Walker, of Virginia Beach, Va., say they will appeal.

Before he was sentenced, Walker, 50, told the court that he regretted his role in his brother’s spy ring. “No one could ever be sorrier than I for what I’ve done,” Arthur Walker said.

Entered Guilty Plea

John Walker was sentenced last month to life in prison after he pleaded guilty to three espionage charges. He agreed to tell all about his 17-year involvement with the Soviet Union if the government showed leniency toward his sailor son, Michael. The son also pleaded guilty and received a 25-year sentence.

Arthur Walker, who did his spying at his brother’s bidding and for a much shorter period, got the stiffer sentence of three life terms and the fine. As part of his plea bargain, John Walker was charged only $100 in court costs and escaped a possible $500,000 fine.

Defense attorneys Brian Donnelly and Samuel Meekins sought leniency for their client, maintaining that Arthur Walker had a limited role in the operation.

“(Arthur) is no John Walker and he should be treated differently,” Donnelly said.

No Harm Meant?

Meekins told the court that “there really is no evidence that he intended to injure the United States.”

Before the sentencing, Arthur Walker’s wife blamed her husband’s troubles on his inability to say no, especially to his spymaster brother, whom she termed “a vulgar man.”

Testifying for nearly 30 minutes at the sentencing hearing, Rita Walker described Arthur Walker’s kindness and desire to watch out for his younger brothers, John and Jim.

“He wouldn’t hurt a flea. He never said no,” she said, explaining that he placed the Navy ahead of his family. “He was proud of serving and proud of what he accomplished because he did work himself up.”

More Smoking and Drinking

She said her husband had nightmares and increased his drinking and smoking while he was spying in the early 1980s.

One night, he came home looking for a shotgun to “blow his brains out,” she testified.

On cross-examination by Miller, she said her husband had an affair with John Walker’s wife, Barbara Walker, in the late 1960s and early 1970s. She said her husband told her about the affair two days after John Walker was arrested last May. John and Barbara Walker are now divorced.

Arthur Walker was convicted on Aug. 9 on seven espionage charges.

He also admitted receiving two $6,000 payments for the documents, which were taken from VSE Corp., a Chesapeake, Va., defense contractor where he worked.

During Arthur Walker’s trial, prosecutors charged him with selling his brother “a bible for sabotage” that showed the best way to attack the flagships of the Navy’s Atlantic and Pacific fleets.