Family Treason: THE WALKER SPY CASE by Jack Kneece (Stein & Day: $17.95; 240 pp.)

Seldom does a book jacket contribute anything of significance to the book it protects. But here we have an exception. The back of the jacket is taken up with a photograph of the author. Many investigative journalists have a wimpy demeanor, but not Jack Kneece.

He has the dogged look of a man who leaves no stone unturned in his quest for the truth. His picture reminds me of a dog I once owned. A white, pink-eyed bull terrier of a determined appearance that belied her affectionate character. But when we’re looking at traitors and spies, I prefer my guide to have that dogged look.

The book has several signs that it was written in a hurry. A rather incoherent first few chapters and descriptions of people and places that carry an unfair burden of cliches. And his stalwart publishers could have quietly told him that imminent and eminent are not synonyms. But it would be ungrateful to dwell on these points.

A lot of miles have been covered and interviews recorded, and if our messenger arrives a little breathless, he at least arrives early. And let it be said straightaway that the book is typical of those high standards of investigative journalism that we have come to expect from American reporters. I suspect that Kneece tells us all that we are going to know for quite a long time. Courteous acknowledgements are made to CIA and FBI agents; however, as a still cynical alumnus of the intelligence fraternity, I am always suspicious when “the Greeks arrive bearing gifts.”

Kneece shows us how it all happened. What happened. And what made it happen. And, in so doing, he brings us a sad message from two important fronts. For those in the business of espionage and counterespionage the messages are not new. They are the fundamentals of the craft. The first message is that spies don’t look like spies. The second is that treason nowadays is seldom if ever for ideological reasons; but for avarice and revenge. So what are the lessons that Kneece’s book has for us?

I can remember that in the aftermath of the German surrender in 1945, when the de-Nazification operation by the Allies was in full swing, there were so many thousands of naughty boys to track down that we had to use comparatively inexperienced intelligence officers. They were bright, intelligent young men, but they lacked the experience of the business of the old China hands.

I can recall having to explain to them that Gestapo men don’t look like Gestapo men. They don’t have their eyes close together, or horns growing out of their foreheads. They look like your Uncle Charlie. For a very simple reason. They were somebody’s Uncle Charlie. So we have the shock of discovering that a traitor who has cost so many American servicemen’s lives was no more than a Walter Mitty figure. A foul-mouthed wife beater and womanizer who saw himself as a cross between Casanova and James Bond. A man who was small in stature and small in mind, who wore a toupee as a Band-Aid for his ego, and who sold his colleagues down the river for the cash that made him feel that he was a swinger and a lady killer.

There was a time, the time of the Philbys, Macleans and Burgesses when treason was committed from ideological conviction rather than greed. But in those days of the late 1930s, few of us, even those pathetic figures, had any real knowledge of what life was actually like in the Soviet Union. There is no such excuse today, and our traitors from the ‘60s onward are people who betray their countrymen for personal gain alone. And the men in Moscow know this. They no longer look for committed ideologues, they know that the days of the Rosenbergs and Krogers are over. KGB Gen. Pavl Sudoplatov lectured the new boys on what they should look for:

“Go search for people who are hurt by fate or nature--the ugly, those suffering from an inferiority complex, craving power and influence but defeated by unfavorable circumstances. . . . The sense of belonging to an influential, powerful organization will give them a feeling of superiority over the handsome and prosperous people around them. For the first time in their lives, they will experience a sense of importance. It is sad indeed, and humanly shallow--but we are obliged to profit from it.”

One senses from his book that Kneece himself is shocked at the callous deception by John Walker and others in his family and circle, because it makes a sick joke of the American attitude to family life. Almost everyone he touched was harmed by the contact. Inherent principles dear to American life have been abused and destroyed by a worthless man. No wonder Kneece has turned over every stone. Hoping, perhaps, that just one stone might reveal a butterfly rather than a slug.

It was an ill stroke of fate that made it an American family that created a new style of espionage. The Family Business. Every American should read this account of Johnny Walker--the life and soul of the party--and learn a lesson. Not that every braggart and bully is a Soviet spy--but that those characteristics should be suspect in any walk of life.