More Damaging Testimony in Spy Trial

A former underling of accused Navy spy Jerry A. Whitworth testified Tuesday that she saw him slip pieces of paper into a briefcase he always carried while both worked at the Alameda Naval communication center.

The testimony of Karen M. Barnett, 23, who was a teen-ager when she worked with Whitworth from 1980 to 1982, appeared to be the most damaging yet against Whitworth, whose trial is expected to last three months. It is now in its second week.

Whitworth, 46, is accused of passing secrets during a nine-year period to his good friend, John A. Walker Jr., who in turn sold them to the Soviet Union. Whitworth, a former senior chief petty officer who retired from the Navy in 1983, allegedly received $332,000 in exchange for the documents.

Barnett acknowledged that she is uncertain whether the papers that she said Whitworth put in his briefcase before leaving work were classified. She said she never was close enough to make out any of the details on the papers.

But Barnett did say in response to questions by prosecutor Leida Schoggen that she saw Whitworth take papers from a basket that held classified messages.

1,300 Messages a Day

As many as 1,300 messages a day go into the Alameda communications center, according to testimony in the trial before U.S. District Judge John P. Vukasin. At least half of the messages are classified as confidential, secret or top secret. Such messages included instructions for deployment of ships moored at the Alameda Naval Shipyard, as well as keys for encrypting and decrypting the specific codes that the ships would employ while at sea.

Barnett said under questioning by defense lawyer James Larson that she disliked Whitworth, noting, “I think most everybody thought that he felt he was better than the rest of us.”

Larson pressed by asking whether her dislike of Whitworth was because he was a “stickler for details and insisted on following the book on details?”

“Yes, I guess so,” Barnett replied.

A second witness, retired radioman Frank Olea, recalled that Whitworth often spent his lunch hour in his silver Dodge van, in which the government contends Whitworth photographed classified documents. Olea said Whitworth told his co-workers that he napped in the van and asked that they awaken him if he overslept.

Olea, noting that Whitworth also owned a sports car, said he asked his Navy friend how he could afford the vehicles.

“He told me all you needed was good credit--you could get anything you wanted,” he testified.