The State - News from April 24, 1986

Federal prosecutors said in documents filed in San Francisco federal court that admitted Soviet spy John A. Walker Jr. passed a recent polygraph test in which he said retired Navy radioman Jerry A. Whitworth sold him military secrets that were passed on to the Soviet Union. Prosecutors filed the papers to counter defense claims that Walker, scheduled to testify when Whitworth’s trial resumes on April 28, is an unreliable witness because he failed a polygraph test after his arrest last May. U.S. District Judge John P. Vukasin had ruled Whitworth’s lawyers could tell jurors about the failed lie detector test. In the new court papers, prosecutors said they oppose letting jurors hear testimony about either test.