Arthur Walker Gets Life Term in Navy Spy Case

Retired Navy officer Arthur J. Walker was sentenced Tuesday to life in prison plus 10 years and fined $250,000 for spying for the Soviet Union--on paper a stiffer punishment than that the government agreed to for his brother, John A. Walker Jr., the ringleader who enlisted him as a spy.

Actually, government sources here said after federal court proceedings in Norfolk, Va., the sentences will work out about the same: Both brothers will go to jail penniless and for life, making them technically eligible for parole in 10 years.

Based on current Parole Commission guidelines, however, their chances of being freed that soon appear slim because espionage is a “category 8” offense, placing it among the most severe.

Grew Suicidal

Despite a plea by Walker’s wife, Rita, that he is a man who could not say no and who grew suicidal over his espionage, U.S. District Judge J. Calvitt Clarke Jr. imposed life sentences on each of three counts and 10 years on three others, but said they were to run concurrently.

“I can’t treat this as a slap-on-the-wrist case,” said Clarke, who found Walker guilty Aug. 9 in a non-jury trial after deliberating only 16 minutes. “The evidence is all to the contrary.”

Walker, 51, who was convicted of funneling Navy secrets from his defense contractor employer, VSE Corp., to his brother for relay to the Soviets, apologized Tuesday.

“I’d like to take this opportunity to apologize to all the citizens of this country for what I did,” he said. “. . . No one could be any sorrier. . . . I dishonored myself.”

Rita Walker, saying her husband “wouldn’t hurt anybody,” told how he suffered nightmares and increased his drinking and smoking while he was spying. One night, she recalled, he searched their home for a shotgun to “blow his brains out.”

But Walker’s prosecutor, Assistant U.S. Atty. Tommy E. Miller, said the government did not believe that Walker had revealed his full role in the ring. “His version is not corroborated by other witnesses,” Miller said.

Role Called Minor

Walker’s attorney, Samuel Meekins, contended that his client’s role in the espionage ring was minor. “There really is no evidence that he intended to injure the United States,” Meekins said.

Under cross-examination by Miller, Rita Walker introduced a new element into the family spy ring by saying that her husband had told her of having an affair with his younger brother’s wife, Barbara Walker, in the late 1960s and early 1970s. It was Barbara Walker, subsequently divorced from John, who tipped off the FBI to her former husband’s spying.

Rita Walker, who described her brother-in-law, John, as “a vulgar man,” said her husband told her of the affair soon after the FBI arrested John Walker last May.

Agree to Cooperate

On Oct. 28, a federal judge in Baltimore accepted plea agreements from John Walker, 48, and his sailor son, Michael, 22, in which they agreed to “cooperate completely” in helping the Navy assess the damage their spying caused.

The agreement provides for John to receive a life sentence and for Michael to be sentenced to 25 years’ imprisonment, making him eligible for parole in slightly more than eight years. They also agreed to testify at the trial in San Francisco in January of Jerry A. Whitworth of Davis, Calif., the alleged fourth member of the ring and a Navy friend of John Walker.

Arthur Walker’s voluntary confessions to the FBI and a federal grand jury last May formed the heart of the government’s case against him. After his conviction, Stephen S. Trott, assistant attorney general in charge of the Justice Department’s criminal division, disclosed that the government had rejected an offer for Walker to plead guilty to a single espionage charge carrying a possible life sentence.