Letters to FBI Detailed at Whitworth Spy Trial

The jury in the Jerry Whitworth spy trial heard some of the prosecution’s most potentially damaging and risky evidence Monday, anonymous letters to the FBI that the government says were written by Whitworth and confessed involvement in espionage for the Soviet Union.

The letters, received between May and August, 1984, and signed RUS, were admitted into evidence by U.S. District Judge John Vukasin over the objections of defense lawyers, who contended that the prosecution had failed to show any connection to Whitworth.

The first letter described a spy ring that passed communications secrets to the Soviets and offered to help break up the ring in exchange for immunity from prosecution.

Whitworth, 46, a former Navy radioman from Davis, Calif., is charged with selling secrets on sensitive code and communications systems for $332,000 to John Walker Jr., his longtime friend, for relay to the Soviets. Walker pleaded guilty in Baltimore last October to running an espionage ring.

Common Type Face

FBI documents expert Jerry Richards said the typewriter could not be identified or matched with known examples of Whitworth’s typing, but the type face was a common one that was also used in one of several typing balls for an electric typewriter found in Whitworth’s house.

In the first letter, the author wrote of having passed along top-secret cryptographic key lists for military communications, technical manuals and intelligence messages, all items that Walker said Whitworth provided.

Perhaps most crucial to the prosecution’s case is a line in the first letter: “I didn’t know that the info was being passed to the U.S.S.R. until after I had been involved a few years. . . .”

Walker testified that he never told Whitworth that the secrets were being bought by the Soviet Union.