Whitworth Convicted as Soviet Spy : Faces Life Terms for Passing Military’s Top Secrets, Its Codes

Jerry A. Whitworth, who left his family farm in Oklahoma to join the Navy and see the world, was convicted Thursday of being a Soviet spy in what the government has called one of the most damaging espionage rings in U.S. history.

The retired Navy communications specialist also was convicted of income tax evasion for failing to pay taxes on the $332,000 he received for passing the military’s most valued possession--its codes.

U.S. District Judge John P. Vukasin set sentencing for Aug. 28.

Whitworth, 46, faces multiple sentences of life in prison, one for each of seven counts of spying for the Soviets, plus a maximum of 17 years for the five income tax convictions.

One Acquittal

The former senior chief petty officer was acquitted of only one of the indictment’s 13 counts, that of possessing a classified document. FBI agents found the document--a plan for Navy communications in case of a Middle East war--while searching Whitworth’s Davis mobile home when he was arrested on June 3, 1985.

Whitworth, who had rarely shown any emotion during the 3 1/2-month trial, remained stone-faced as the verdict was read. Assistant U.S. Atty. William (Buck) Farmer softly rapped the counsel table and smiled.

Jurors, who deliberated a total of 52 hours over 10 days, left the federal courthouse here without commenting.

Farmer hailed the verdict and said the jury had been meticulous.

Maximum Sentence Wanted

His boss, U.S. Atty. Joseph Russoniello, said the government will seek the maximum sentence. Russoniello noted that Whitworth could be eligible for parole in 35 years and once more called for reinstatement of the death penalty for convicted spies.

In Washington, John L. Martin, chief of the Justice Department’s internal security section, said: “I’m satisfied that justice has been done.”

Whitworth’s lawyer, James Larson, maintained that the true culprit was John A. Walker Jr., the espionage ringleader, who turned government witness and testified against the man he once called his best friend. Walker last October pleaded guilty to espionage charges and faces life in prison.

Whitworth was the fourth and final member of the Walker spy ring to be convicted.

Walker began spying in the winter of 1968 when, as a Navy radioman, he walked into the Soviet Embassy in Washington and sold a day’s worth of codes for the Atlantic submarine fleet for $1,000.

Walker retired as a Navy chief warrant officer in 1976, but not before he had recruited Whitworth. He later also recruited his son, Michael, and brother, Arthur, and tried to bring in a daughter and half-brother.

The trial, which opened March 24 in federal court here, provided the only detailed public exposure of the Walker spy ring, described by Farmer, the lead prosecutor, as responsible for the worst “hemorrhage” of military secrets in the nation’s history.

150 Government Witnesses

Farmer and assistant U.S. Atty. Leida Schoggen, together with John Dion of the Justice Department in Washington and James Alsop of the Navy, presented nearly 150 government witnesses, including FBI and Internal Revenue Service agents, admirals and top officials of the CIA and National Security Agency.

But their central witness was John Walker, the high school dropout turned master spy who testified that he sold U.S. military secrets to the Soviet Union for 17 years.

Walker, a 22-year Navy veteran, told jurors how he recruited into the ring his son, Michael, a Navy seaman who was stationed on the aircraft carrier Nimitz, and his brother, Arthur, another retired Navy officer, as well as Whitworth.

Walker, who will be eligible for parole in 10 years, agreed to become a prosecution witness in exchange for a lighter prison sentence for his son, who is serving a 25-year sentence. Arthur Walker was convicted of espionage and sentenced to a life term.

Walker met Whitworth in 1970 while both were instructors at the naval radioman’s training school in San Diego. They shared an interest in sailing and spent off hours on Walker’s boat, The Dirty Old Man.

Meeting in Bar

Walker testified that in 1974 he concluded that Whitworth had “larceny in his heart” and that over drinks at a now-closed bar near Lindbergh Field in San Diego, he made this pitch: Whitworth could make $2,000 to $4,000 a month by passing classified documents, particularly top-secret code information. Walker would broker the information to what he described vaguely as private intelligence agencies and allied nations.

In fact, Walker testified that during all the years of spying he never specified to Whitworth exactly who received the secrets that Whitworth stole.

For the next eight years, Whitworth, using a miniature camera and the Navy’s own photocopy machines, amassed and passed valuable information on naval codes and communications, according to the testimony.

Prosecution witnesses repeatedly underscored the importance of the breach.

Earl D. Clark Jr., who spent 35 years as a top official in the secretive National Security Agency, called military codes “probably the most sensitive material this government has.”

“It protects all the other critical secrets of this nation,” Clark said. “Give me access to your codes, give me access to your ciphers and you won’t have any secrets.”

In Washington, Navy Secretary John F. Lehman said it will take years and perhaps $100 million to repair the damage caused by the Walker spy ring. In an interview with the Associated Press after the Whitworth case had gone to the jury, Lehman said the setback was such that the Navy believes the Soviets still may be monitoring some low-priority channels.

Defense Strategy

Larson and a second Whitworth defense lawyer, Tony Tamburello, built their defense on the assertion that their client did not knowingly spy for the Soviets, seeking to turn the jury toward considering the crime of unauthorized disclosure of codes, which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison, rather than espionage.

Larson acknowledged in his closing argument that Whitworth stole Navy secrets, passed them to Walker in exchange for money and then evaded taxes on the $332,000 that he received.

Most startlingly, perhaps, Larson admitted that Whitworth authored the so-called RUS letters to the FBI, an anonymous series of letters in which the author described his involvement in a spy ring. Judge Vukasin described the letters as a virtual confession.

But Larson argued that Walker, a “master of deceit,” led Whitworth into thinking that the information he stole went to Israel.

Whitworth did not testify in his own defense.

Whitworth enlisted in the Navy in 1956 at age 17, leaving his tiny hometown of Muldrow, Okla., and the family farm in nearby Paw Paw Bottoms.

“There, we didn’t make a lot of money. And he wanted money so he could get an education and get out of the Bottoms,” testified Geneva Green, a high school classmate from Muldrow.

Whitworth excelled in his 23-year Navy career, former shipmates told the court. Master Chief Petty Officer Thomas Bennett described him as the kind of sailor “who walks on water without getting his feet wet.”

Portrayed as Competent

In many duty stations, he was the one man who not only knew the theory behind the intricate naval communications system of satellites, computers and ciphers, but who could fix the code machines when they broke.

The government’s first hint of the Walker spy ring came in May, 1984, when the first of four mysterious letters, signed, “RUS, Somewhere USA,” arrived at the FBI office in San Francisco.

The author said he had been involved in espionage for several years, had passed top-secret code information and knew of three other members.

He offered to turn in the ring, on condition that his name was not made public, that he not be prosecuted and that he get expense money from the government. The FBI, following directions in the letters, placed personal ads in Monday editions of The Los Angeles Times, trying to arrange a meeting.

But in August, 1984, RUS wrote that he was naive to think he could get such a sweet deal from the government. He broke off communications with the observation that since the ring had gone undetected for so long, it would never be discovered.

But around the same time, John Walker’s ex-wife, Barbara, telephoned the FBI.

Another key witness at Whitworth’s trial, she had known of her husband’s espionage since 1969 when she pried open a desk and discovered cryptic Soviet-supplied instructions telling Walker when and where to make his next delivery of military secrets. Rather than turn him in, she took a cut of the money and continued to do so even after they were divorced in 1976.

Motivated by Fear

She went to authorities in November, 1984, in part, she testified, because she was concerned that her daughter’s estranged husband might expose the ring first.

Barbara and her daughter, Laura Walker, told FBI agents of an old friend of John’s named Wentworth who lived in California. FBI Agent Robert F. Griego, assigned to find him, concluded in March, 1985, that it was Whitworth that he was after and found him living in a trailer park in Davis. Whitworth had not worked since quitting the Navy in 1983. His wife was finishing work on a doctorate in nutrition at the University of California at Davis.

For a time, the FBI watched both Walker and Whitworth. Then, on the weekend of May 19, 1985, the FBI moved against Walker.

An army of agents, in planes and in cars, watched as Walker took a long drive in his van from his home in Norfolk, Va. He dropped a grocery bag filled with military secrets on an isolated road in rural Maryland. A Soviet agent assigned to pick up the bag realized something was amiss when the signal Walker was to leave--a crumpled soda pop can--was not there. An FBI agent had mistakenly picked it up. The Soviet agent drove off and within days returned to Moscow. But Walker was arrested early on May 20.

Agents arrived at Whitworth’s mobile home that morning. Whitworth admitted knowing Walker, and while he quipped that he would not trust Walker with his wife, he said he believed the country was correct in placing its trust in his friend. The FBI showed Whitworth the RUS letters, which he did not deny writing.

After the agents left, Whitworth called a friend, Warren R. Foster of La Mesa, a community near San Diego, and broke into tears.

“ ‘I didn’t think it would come to this,’ ” Foster quoted him as saying.

Also contributing to this story were Times staff writers Ronald J. Ostrow in Washington and Marianne Hansen in San Francisco.