Miniseries Puts Spy’s Family Back in Spotlight

The former wife of convicted spy John A. Walker Jr. says her peace has been shattered by a television series about his spy ring, one of the most damaging espionage cases in the nation’s history.

The series, based loosely on two books about John A. Walker Jr.’s career as a spy for the Soviet Union, has reopened old wounds, Barbara Joy Crowley Walker said in a telephone interview with The Cape Cod Times.

Mrs. Walker, 51, lives on Cape Cod but asked that the location of the house she shares with a daughter and grandson not be disclosed.

CBS broadcast the first of two parts of “Family of Spies: The Walker Spy Ring,” on Sunday. The second part is scheduled tonight. Mrs. Walker said she saw excerpts but did not plan to watch the series.

She said she is upset that she is being portrayed as weak and ineffectual, and as an alcoholic. She is hurt that her children will relive a time in their lives that was “an absolute nightmare.”

Mrs. Walker and her husband were divorced in 1976, and she turned in her husband to authorities in 1984, unaware that her son was involved in the ring.

Walker, a retired Navy communications specialist, had recruited his son, brother and a friend as members of the spy ring. He pleaded guilty in 1985 and was sentenced to life in prison.

Mrs. Walker worries that the public will not understand that her son, Michael Lance Walker, 27, now serving a 25-year sentence in federal prison, “did all he did because he so desperately loved his father.”

“I know what happened was news and now it is one for the history books,” she said. “But now my life, or at least some screenwriter’s version of it, is being shown on the television, not as news, not as history, but as entertainment for millions of people.

“Let me tell you, what my children suffered and what they continue to suffer has nothing to do with entertainment.”

Sunday night’s program carried the following disclaimer: “Certain events and characters portrayed herein have been fictionalized.”

Disclaimer or not, Mrs. Walker believes people will see the show and believe it.

Gerry Abrams, the co-executive producer of the miniseries, said those affiliated with the project had been in touch with Mrs. Walker for the past four years. He said she had been paid a fee for the rights to her story, but would not give the amount.

Mrs. Walker said the past five years have been spent “trying to heal the wounds.” She has sought to help her three daughters, all in their 30s, deal with the conflicts caused by loving their father while hating what he did.

“John Walker is not a horrible person. He is just a very sad man who took the path of least resistance,” she said.