Walker’s ‘Family’ of Greedy Spies

We tend to romanticize spies and, even when they’re the enemy, give them our grudging admiration for jeopardizing their lives for a cause.

This time, however, there is neither romance nor a cause. In “Family of Spies: The Walker Spy Ring,” there is only greed.

There is also no one to admire in this two-part CBS drama (which airs at 9 p.m. Sunday and at 8 p.m. on Tuesday on Channels 2 and 8), no hero to delight in, no underdog to pull for, not even an embittered idealist to sympathize with.

What is here is an incredible whopper of a story--thanks to director Stephen Gyllenhaal, writer Richard DeLong, a fine cast and, yes, even John Anthony Walker Jr. himself, the evil, depraved, corrupting former Navy man whose espionage activities from 1968-85 have been called the most damaging in U.S. history. Without Walker, there would be no story.

Walker was a chief petty officer serving as communications watch officer on a submarine based in Charlestown, S.C., when he contacted the Soviet Embassy in Washington and arranged to sell his services as a spy. Thus began a 17-year odyssey of espionage, during which Walker--who retired from the Navy in 1976--recruited his son, Michael; his older brother, Arthur, and a friend, Jerry Whitworth, to help him feed secret codes and other highly classified information to the Soviets. He failed in his attempts to get his daughters to join the lucrative “family business.”

The spy ring collapsed after Walker’s former wife, Barbara, turned him in to the FBI, and all of its members are now in prison.

Based on two books--”Family of Spies: Inside the John Walker Spy Ring” by Pete Earley and “I Pledge Allegiance” by Howard Blum--the miniseries carries the following disclaimer: “Certain events and characters portrayed herein have been fictionalized.” Those events and characters aren’t identified, so believe “Family of Spies” at your own risk.

Without a doubt, though, it conforms to at least the broad outlines of the case, from which Gyllenhaal--who squanders no opportunity for suspense--crafts a gripping tale that gets especially good Tuesday night when Walker has split from both the Navy and Barbara and become a high-living entrepreneur of espionage.

There’s a puzzling bit of business here concerning Whitworth’s apparent attempt to betray Walker. What does it mean? And although part of the ring, Walker’s brother appears so fleetingly that he’s a conspirator almost in absentia.

Otherwise, “Family of Spies” is irresistibly good.

Powers Boothe is superb as the silky, master seducer, Walker--an utterly cold, cruel and soulless man who shrewdly charms and exploits the weaklings around him and is ready to sacrifice his children on behalf of his own self-serving ambitions. At first he seems indestructible, but as his mistrust of his Soviet bosses grows and fear sets in--at one point he feels the need to carry a cane with a hidden sword as protection--there’s desperation in his eyes.

But the performance of the show--and perhaps the season--is Lesley Ann Warren’s as Barbara, the saddest character here, a pitiful, self-destructive drunk who loves her kids but is too lost and fragile herself to help them. Warren is one of those actresses whose consistent good acting is often overlooked, and her work as Barbara just wipes you out.

Barbara’s warnings to her children about getting involved with their father are ignored by Michael (well played by Andrew Lowery), shown here as completely manipulated by the elder Walker. More than anything, that’s what “Family of Spies” is about--an amoral puppeteer and his puppets.