SPY TIP FOLLOWED TAROT CARDS
Document Type:
Collection:
Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST):
CIA-RDP90-00552R000201670066-5
Release Decision:
RIPPUB
Original Classification:
K
Document Page Count:
6
Document Creation Date:
December 22, 2016
Document Release Date:
July 19, 2010
Sequence Number:
66
Case Number:
Publication Date:
June 6, 1985
Content Type:
OPEN SOURCE
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F
ARTICL
Tarot Car s
S i
py Tp FollOwed
Ex- Wife Agonized for a Year Before Calling FBI
By Sharon LaFraniere and Ruth Marcus
. The month that her son reported for duty
on the USS Nimitz, Barbara Joy Crowley
Walker was agonizing over whether to tell
authorities she suspected her ex-husband was
a Soviet spy, according to a friend of the fam-
ily who said Walker turned to her for advice.
Shalel Way, 29, whose parents befriended
Barbara Walker after she moved to Skowhe-
gan, Maine, in 1976 following her divorce
from John A. Walker Jr., said that in January
1984 Barbara Walker asked her for a tarot
card reading to help her decide whether to go
to the FBI.
"She said she suspected he was giving se-
crets to the Russians. She said he would get
drunk and call her on the phone and brag
about it," Way .said in an interview at her
apartment in Skowhegan, a tiny factory town.
in central Maine. She said Barbara Walker
discussed whether she should contact author-
ities while sitting in Way's mother's kitchen
on a.wintryafternoon in January.1984..
As she considered whether to implicate her
former husband, Way said, Barbara Walker
was apparently unaware of the alleged in-
volvement of her son, Navy Seaman Michael
Walker. "She's just about destroyed," said
Way, who stated that she overheard part of a
telephone conversation between her mother
and Barbara Walker after Michael Walker's
arrest.
Way said that during that conversation,
Barbara Walker told her mother
that she doesn't believe her son was
really involved and thinks her ex-
husband is somehow framing Mi-
chael to punish his ex-wife for. tip-
ping off the authorities. Barbara
Walker's sister-in-law, Pat Crowley,
also said Barbara Walker - had no
clue her actions would lead to her
son's arrest.
Walker apparently' deliberated
for about a year before calling the
Hyannis, Mass., office of the FBI
about six months ago, providing the
tip that triggered the arrests of her
ex-husband, a retired chief warrant
officer; her son; her former broth-
er-in-law, retired Navy lieutenant
commander Arthur James Walker;
and a friend and former Navy col-
league of John Walker's, retired
communications specialist Jerry
Alfred Whitworth.
A fifth person, "F," also may be
implicated in the alleged espionage
ring, according to an FBI affidavit.
Barbara Walker told The Los An-
geles Times yesterday that her for-
mer husband began spying for the
Soviet Union in the late 1960s to
get money for a failing South Car-,
olina restaurant in which he had
invested. She said he had received
"well over.$100,000" for his alleged
espionage activities.
She said she never would have
gone to authorities if she had known
it would lead to the arrest of her
,only son, 22.
"I love Michael so much," she
said. "I love my country, but I never
could have brought myself to do it. if
I had known he was' part of this
thing. I was devastated when I
learned Michael was involved."
She said her daughter, Laura
STAT
In other developments yesterday:
a A source familiar with the inves-
tigation said the FBI plans today to
interview a person at the Naval Air
Station in Pensacola, Fla., in con-
nection with the alleged espionag
case.
^ Former CIA director Stansfiel
Turner blamed the engt y e STAT
uncovering the alleged espionage
rm~m mart on a educed emphasis
on CIA counterintelligence during
the 1970s. The espionage may have
begun as long as 20 years ago, ac-
cording to a federal affidavit.
At a breakfast meeting with re-
porters, Turner, a retire admiral,
said he is alarmed by the possibility
that John Walker gave the Soviets
"absolutely vita inte igence a out
submarine deployment. "What re-
ally bothers me," he said, is that
such information might accelerate
the Soviets' research into methods
of locating U.S. submarines below
the surface.
awl he Pentagon said that Whit-
worth was- twice reapproved for a
I "top secret" security clearance dur-
ing the period in which he is ac-
cused of conspiring with John Walk-
er to spy for the Soviet Union. John
and Arthur Walker, who both held
top secret clearances during their
Navy careers, were never subjected
to reviews of their security clear-
ances, which are supposed to be
Mae Walker Snyder, had told her conducted every five years, accord-
'John Walker tried to enlist her as STAT ing to a statement from the office of
spy in 1979 when the daughter was Michael I. Burch, chief Pentagon
an Army communications specialist spokesman.
at Fort Polk, La.
4s for why she finally went to the
FBI, Barbara Walker said, "I
wanted to protect my children. Was
I seeking vengeance? Well, a part of
me wanted to see him get what he
deserved."
The interview took place in her
apartment in West Dennis, Mass.
Mrs. Walker, who had worked in a
Skowhegan shoe factory after her
divorce from Walker in 1976, moved
to the Cape Cod community last
summer to live with her daughter.
a Senate Intelligence Committee
Chairman David F. Durenberger (R-
mn. ca a on the Reagan admin-
istration "to cut in half the amount of
information we classify and cut by
more than a the number of people
who have access to it." .. .
He said security checks for those.
cleared to see sensitive information,
were inadequate and that a ten en-:
cy to classify too much information
created a situation in which those
with clearances feel "everything
can't be that secret so people treat
nothing as secret."
Durenberger said in an interview
that he believed "we're getting et-
ter" at finding spies. At the same
time, he said, there is "more spying
going on and a lot more clever spy-
ing going on."
w
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^ A memorandum filed in federal
court in Baltimore said that John
Walker, despite a net worth of
$174,785 at the time of his arrest
May 20, cannot now afford to pay
for a lawyer.
Walker's court-appointed law-
yers, federal public defenders Fred
Warren Bennett and Thomas B.
Mason, said in the memorandum
that Walker cannot afford to pay the
estimated $20,000 to $75,000
costs of his legal defense because
the government has placed tax liens
against some of Walker's property
and seized other assets, including
ten 100-ounce bars of silver bullion
valued at $6,100. ' .
The Internal, Revenue Service
yesterday placed liens on Walker's
land holdings in North Carolina and
South Carolina. It had placed liens
I Tuesday against his assets in Nor-
folk, The IRS said he owed
$252,487 in back taxes, interest
and penalties for the years since
1979. . .
The IRS often moves to recover
back taxes, interest and penalties
against those accused of a crime
when agents believe a person may
not have reported all of his income,
legal or illegal.
In the interview yesterday, Way
said that Barbara Walker hesitated
before going to the FBI because she
was uncertain whether John Walk-
er's talk of his escapades 'as a Soviet
spy were true or mere boasting
from a man who, friends say,
bragged about everything from his
detective abilities to his many girl-
friends.
"She would say, 'Are you' just
talking, Johnny, or is this the
truth?'-" Way said.
Way said Barbara Walker hoped
the tarot cards would help illuminate
the matter. She said she, advised
i Walker to "be very cautious and
make sure you know the whole story,
make sure it's not braggadocio."
In a black notebook,.Way wrote
this account of the afternoon: "Wo-
man holds secret that is of military
importance. regarding ex-husband
John. Will reveal eventually. Cau-,
tion."
While Way said Barbara Walker
was "not a bitter woman at all,"'
friends in Skowhegan said she had
little reason to feel kindly toward
her ex-husband.
After 19 years of living with her
husband in Norfolk on a comfortable
income, she had to struggle to make
ends meet after their divorce. She
had to rent an apartment for $35 a
week in a rundown building, they
said, before she could afford to
move to ,a nicer two-story house.
She found a job doing piecework
at a shoe factory and, according to
her sister-in-law Pat Crowley,
would work an extra hour in the
morning and through her lunch
hour to add to her paycheck.
Way, who lives in an apartment
behind the house Barbara Walker
rented, said she came home in jeans
and a sweatshirt covered with soot
and glue, too tired to change
clothes. "She'd say, 'Johnny Walker
did this to me,' " Way said.
Crowley remembered an occa-
sion when Barbara Walker "passed
out at work one time, she was so
tired. "We kept after her. I said,
'You're working yourself to death
and then where will your children
be? She'd say, 'Yeah, but I have to
pay the fuel bill.' "
Way said that while it appeared
.from talking to Barbara Walker that
her ex-husband "was cruel to her,"
patriotism was a -large part of the
reason why Barbara Walker wanted
to talk to the FBI.
She said Barbara Walker, who
always hung a flag outside on Me-
morial Day, once told her, "Johnny
Walker is a traitor to his country.
I'm really going to get him for this.
That's my country."
She said Barbara Walker decided
to go to authorities once she had
the facts, despite fear of reprisals
by her ex-husband. "She is a very
courageous woman."
Although Barbara Walker's oldest
daughter Margaret and son Michael
were close to their father and moved
back to Norfolk where he lived,
friends said her two middle daugh-
ters, Cynthia and Laura, seem. to
share her ill opinion of their father.
They complained that he had "mis-
treated' their mother" and favored
Michael, Way said. "Michael got' all
the presents, the money and the
trips, and they got nothing."
For his part, John Walker com-
plained that his two middle daugh-
ters "only called when they wanted
money," according to. his business
partner, Laurie Robinson.
Michael Walker held a special
place in his mother's affections,
Way said. Barbara Walker made a
trip to attend Michael Walker's
graduation from boot camp, accord-
'ing to Crowley.
In a note on one of her tarot
'reading sessions with Barbara
Walker, Way wrote, "Michael, fa-
vorite."
Staff writers John Mintz, Joe
Pichirallo and Molly Sinclair
contributed to this report.
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ILRTICLI Pl RID
illt PaG!ca__=L_!
WASHINGTON POST
7 June 1985
Spy Ring Damage Called `Serious,'
By George C. Wilson and John Mintz
' Washington Post Staff Writers
j The Navy, after sifting through
piles of ' documents and studying
interviews conducted with a wide
range of present and former ac-,
quaintances of four members of the,
alleged Walker spy ring, has tenta-
tively concluded that it has suffered
a "serious" but "not disastrous" loss
of its secrets to the Soviets, accord-
ing to a top Pentagon official who
has been briefed on the case.
Other high-ranking Pentagon of-
ficials said yesterday they shared
that assessment.
. Although the concern of Defense
Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger
has increased as he learns from his
frequent damage assessment brief
ings about what might have been
lost, the worst fears of Navy lead- '
ers-that'the Soviets would learn,
the Navy's innermost secrets about
submarine warfare-have not yet `
been realized, officials said.
Near the top of this Navy list are
the advanced techniques for mon-
itoring and, in wartime, destroying
Soviet submarines, and for making
U.S. submarines invisible during
the silent combat that could take
place under the sea someday.
No evidence yet is in hand, offi-
cials said, to suggest that any of the
accused in the Walker spy organ-,
ization managed to break through
the several rings of secrecy around
such "black" programs.
A U.S. intelligence official said
another prime area of concern is
what the Soviets may have, learned
about top secret communications
equipment, en lion techniques
and daily code cards from two of the.
accused who had access to that in-
formation while in the Navy.
Under the worst case scenario,
the official said, the Soviets could
have received manuals on the cod-
ing machines themselves, together
Not `Disastrous
.with "key. cards" used to transmit
secret messages on cryptographic
gear.
With this combinatioa, the Sovi-
ets may have been able to detect
patterns that could compromise
U.S. military codes. There is no
evidence to date, officials added,
that this has happened.
The FBI and the Naval Investi-
gative Service, officials said, have
cast a broad net in hopes of learning
what information the Soviets did
receive. The FBI, as part of this
inteucive damage assessment ef-
fort, has been giving he detector
tests, to, present and former ac-
quaintances of:the:suspects in the`-
:Walker spy ring. c A
"All we've got now are the papers'
the Russians didn't get,"' said one
Pentagon official .,~, ,
John A. Walker Jr., 47, a retired
Navy chief warrant officer, was ar-
rested May 20 on an espionage
charge after allegedly leaving a bag
of classified documents for a Soviet
diplomat in a rural section of Mont-
gomery County. Three other for-
i mer. and .current Navy personnel
;also have been charged with espi-
onage: Jerry Alfred Whitworth, 45,.
Walker's son, Michael Lance Walk-
er, 22, a Navy 'seaman; and John .
Walker's brother, retired lieutenant
commander Arthur James Walker,
The fears of civilian and military,
officials are offset somewhat be-
cause the United States has new
ways to use sound waves to find
Soviet submarines if the present-
.1day listening systems have been
irreparably compromised by secret
papers sent to the Russians. .
The Soviets have had ' years to
gather information about the Sosus
(sound surveillance system), the
of underwater submarine-
detecting microphones strung along
the Atlantic and Pacific coasts dec-
ades age. Given that, some subma-
rine specialists doubt that the spy
ring could add much to the Soviets'
~d Weinberger is worried
about what the Soviets might have
learned about the whole range of
U.S. military -operations and capa-
bilities that uniformed specialists
might regard as close to routine.
Asked yesterday if Weinberger's
concern has increased because of
what he has learned in his most re-
cent briefings, Pentagon spokesman
Michael I. Burch said the defense
secretary's ce week concern when he termed
the loss "serious. If you want to say
even more serious, that's fair
enough."
Burch added in an-interview that it
would be premature to characterize
the loss of military secrets as the
biggest the Navy has yet suffered.
Sen. David F. Durenbergerr((R
Mann.). Shijoan of the. Senate
telligence Committee, downplayed
the possible amage.
-I'm not that worried about the
information" the suspects had access
t'6. Durenber er said. "It certainl
wasn't helpful for the ' ormation
to en u in vier aniT sdTut it
wasn't of such si cane that
there's any kind of alarm. I think a
lot of information may corroborate
stuff that is stolen outri ht" or inter-
cepted electronically by Soviets.
"Brut it isn't dama in m the larger
sense that, for example, the theft of
some plans for some supersecret in-
telligence collector ce a spy sat
eellite might be.
uren erger added, 'Tm not min-
imizing this. I'm saying it is a good
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reason for the American public to
pressure the bureaucracy of the gov-
ernment to change the way we han-
dle national security information."
From the professional military
viewpoint, the investigation to date
points to John A. Walker Jr. as the
"
top
biggest risk because of access to
secret crpyto" information, service
on a nuclear powered missile subma-
rine and work as a Navy radioman at
the Navy's Atlantic Fleet submarine
headquarters at Norfolk.
"Everythig flows thraathhaatt""
retired vice admiral Bobby Kay
nman former y ea o e ation-
di-
a Security enc an eputy
rector ~o t Centra . Intelligence
A en said o e ea uarters.
ou to pis c out a sensitivea
ty m t e fleet that would rank in
one of the top 20 or sot that would
be it, . Walker served there from
to 1969.
Copies of radio messages
be- tween the headquarters and the
submarine fleet at sea, Inman said,
would be e*tremely valuable to the
Soviets because."there are no other
regular sources of -submarine infor-
mation, no constant flaw. of infor-
mation about what their do and bow
Analysts said that even if John
Walker provided the Soviets with techni ues si natures call sins
sensitive information about the Unit- frequencies ... . In the intelligence
ed States submarine force as early as ra e, t ere are no secrets more se-
the 1960s, the Soviets are unlikely cret, none you want to protect
to change their submarine tactics in more n those dealing wi com-
a way. that would reveal their knowl- mumcations.
Military officials agree that the
Compared with the information
John Walker had, the access en-
joyed by his older brother Arthur
originally. seemed to be minor. But
some officials recently have become
more concerned about the risk he
may have posed. Arthur Wale,
who joined the Navy as a seaman in
1953, received submarine training
and served on a number of subm**
rines in the 1950s and 1960s. He
specialized during his career in an-
tisubmarine warfare, and may have
told the Soviets about U.S. tactics,
Pentagon sources said.
In the late I960s and early 1978s,
Arthur Walker, then a lieutenant
least informed of the four alleged
spies is Michael Walker. Working in
the operations department of the
aircraft carrier Nimitz, he would
have known about the daily work-
ings of the carrier and nearby ships.
He had access to materials bound
for the "burn bag," a device used in
destroying -documents, but he saw
te=
nothing more sensitive than ma
rial wmable under his relatively
lowly "secret" clearance.
Staff writers Ruth Marcus and Molly
Sinclair contributed to this report.
commander, was an instructor in an-.
tisubmarine warfare tactics at the
Atlantic Fleet Tactical School. ,
Arthur Walker's work at VSE
Corp., a Chesa eake, a., ense
contract. r w e: a he wor ed on
mamtenance sc edu es or s , was
lmost nn ante com ea to uie
mte ence tentia com romi
'b trot er o n, sat former
j rector tans ie urner..
Military experts have varying
views about the potential damage
done by Whitworth, a 21-year Navy
unications
veteran who was a comm
specialist assigned to duty in the
Pack Ocean. His most sensitive
assignment was in 1982 and 1983,
when he was communications watch
officer aboard the USS Enterprise,
an aircraft carrier. '
jhtriteg asst of his career be held
sensitive jobs handling communica-
tions and codes.. '
Whitworth ' had access to many
manuals on building and operating
conmm tions gear. Military of-
ficials. fear that Whitworth - might have given away both the content of
messages he read, as well as the de-
tailed plans for the, machinery.
However, Whitworth's access to
the most sensitive material would
have been limited.
"A radioman is terribly helpful to
d yaw e A. Carver Jr. a
say
orme deputy error. t s
not the compromise of any smg'le
message It's,_ the compromise oof
Inman characterized John Walk-
er's service from 1965 to 1967 as
senior chief radioman on the nucle-
ar missile submarine Simon Bolivar
as his second most sensitive assign-
ment.
Walker received his "top secret
crypto" clearance, allowing access
to highly sensitive material, in 1965
and held; it until he retired from the
Navy in 1976 with the rank of chief
uments say the spy ring may have
been in operation as curly as 1965.
The communications Walker
might have seen, if presen ted'to the
Soviets, might appear 'to have no
value today. But sub a specaa>r
ists said.they might" be damaging
because of what they ? might reveal.
about. the general pattern and area
of missile submarine operations.
Missile 'submarines must know in
advance the-features on the bottom
of the ocean. so they., know exactly
where they are at every second of
their slow patrol. Otherwise, they
could not achieve accuracy with their
missiles. Also, certain conditions are
needed for maximum stealth and re-
liable communications.
4 .
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Risk of Customs Detection
If Mr. Walker had received large
amounts of money overseas, he would
have risked being caught by customs
officers when returning to the United
States, said Mr. Crowley, the former
C.I.A. official who recently wrote a
book on the K.G.B.
"It might have been discovered with
the money, and it might have tripped a
h
e said. ac makes more sense to
curity reasons, they said, there ap. met union an excuse tar posting a alas,
peared to have been few, if any, recent relatively large number of K.G.B. pay him in the United States." Law-en-
face-to-face meetings in the United agents in Vienna posing as diplomats. forcement officials say they believe
States between Mr. Walker and Soviet The Austriaa?Government is thought to that Mr. Walker received hundreds of
have relatively little surveillance of thousands of dollars from Soviet agents
agents. foreign intelligence agents, they said. but have so far been unable to trace
Intelligence analysts said they be- Andrew Daulton Lee, a California most of the money.
lieve that a Soviet diplomat who was man who admitted in 1977 that he had Mr. Walker was arrested after leav-
named a co-conspirator in the alleged sold secret documents to Soviet agents ing a bag containing more than 100 se-
spying operation was a relatively low- about American spy satellites, re- cret Navy documents at a site in rural
level K.G.B. agent who may never ceived espionage training in Vienna, of. Maryland, the F.B.I. has said.
have met Mr. Walker. Instead, they ficials said. Clues about the espionage operation
said, the diplomat had been assigned to The F.B.I. has said that it knows of at were provided in a secret note report-
pick up documents that Mr. Walker left least eight meetings in Vienna between edly written last year by Jerry A. Whit-
'secluded sites. Soviet agents and Mr. Walker since worth, the California man arrested in
atMr. uded sites. bson and a 1976. the case. According to the F.B.I., the
man his hdescribed brother, h as his fat "I'm sure Vienna was the standard note said that American locations were
California Walker,
debriefing site," said Ra lime, for- "always" used by the Soviet agents
friend have been arrested in what the mer deputy director o t> f Cenral In- when they passed money to Mr. Walk-
'JARED , N.Lw YORK 'I'Ir'hS
July 1985
U.S. Analysts Offer an Account
Of HowA lleged Spy Ring Worked
Vienna Seen as Center for Espionage - Walker
Is Said to Have Received Soviet Military Rank
By PHILIP SHENON tection against surveillance by Amer- cers," Mr. Cline said.
Spacial to The New York Times ican law-enforcement agencies. The of- Other meetings took place in the
WASHINGTON, July 8-- Federal of- ficials cautioned that many, and per- Philipp } eco to
ficials and intelligence analysts say haps most details of the purported Mr. Cline, now professor of B.I.
that John A. Walker Jr. passed Navy scheme will never be known unless Mr. interna-
tional relations at Georgetown Univer-
secrets to the K.G.B. in an elaborate Walker, who is accused of forming the sity, said those countries were prob-
scheme that apparently involved espio- spy ring, begins to cooperate with law ably chosen because Soviet agents felt
nage training in Austria and the use of enforcement authorities. that law-enforcement agencies there
Soviet couriers in Washington. What is known, officials said, has were relatively lase in their surveil-
In their most extensive account of been determined largely from personal lance of foreigners. "It would be a
how they believe the espionage opera- papers, travel receipts and telephone safer environment," be said.
tion was carried out, officials said that records that were found in searches of Because of tighter security by Amer.
Mr. Walker almost certainly dealt with Mr. Walker's home and office in Nor- scan law-enforcement agencies, offi-
several agents of the K.G.B., theSoviet folk, Va., as well as statements made Gals say, it appeared- that relatively
few, if any, face-to-tace meetings be.
intelligence agency, in what they say to investigators by his son, Michael L.
tween a 20-year spying career. Walker and brother, Arthur J. Walker. Soviet agents and Mr. Walker
took
Intelligence analysts speculated that They said that Mr. Walker's case place in the United States in recent
Mr. Walker was awarded a high rank in seems to follow what one investigative years. they said, the Soviet agents
the Soviet armed forces, probably the source described as a "common pat- used sites in suburban areas near
Soviet Navy, and received decorations tern" of Soviet intelligence agencies. Washington, D.C. Parcels of informa-
for his information. "He might very "We don't know nearly ash much as don were left by Mr. Walker and re-
well have tried on his Soviet uniform," wed like," the source said. "But from trieved later, by Soviet agents, they
said Robert T. Crowley, a retired sen- what we do know about the K.G.B., its said.
...not that difficult to come up with a rea- exchange they said, the agents
for offs o t e entral Intelligence sonable understanding" of the '
y ring. That t opera- i - used the ~e sites to leave packages
Agency. tion of the purported of money for Mr. Walker. The officials
Mr. Walker has been indicted on es- derstanding, he stressed, "is based, to said large cash payments to Mr.
pionage. charges but has pleaded not a large extent, on well-informed specu- Walker for his information were made
guilty. lation." in the United States, another effort to
Frequent Trips to Vienna Any training that Mr. Walker may avoid detection.
have received, post likely in the use of
While details remains sketchy, the secret cameras and audio equipment,
authorities say the K.G.B. asked Mr. probably took place in Vienna, where
Walker, a retired Navy warrant offs- the Soviet Union has a large embassy
cer, to make frequent trips to Vienna, and controls numerous safe houses, of-
where he woull pass along secret infor- ficials said.
mation collected from other members U.N. Ageney In Austria
of the purported Navy spy ring. The International Atomic Energy
Vienna, they said, was also where Agency, a United Nations agency, is
Mr. Walker probably received training based in Austria. According to inteW-
in the techniques of espionage. For se- gence specialists, that has given the
The note also said that Mr. Walker
guilty. been the spy capitals since the end of
"
He added that Soviets
The K.G.B. scheme, officials said, World War II.
was designed to offer maximum pro- agents preferred Austria. "The Swiss
are pretty tough on intelligence offi-
fficials said they had little informa-
A
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tion about a Soviet aipiomat, Alexsey
G. Tkachenko, who was recalled to
Moscow after prosecutors named him
as a co-conspirator. The F.B.I. said its
agents had seen him in the vicinity of
the site in rural Maryland that Mr.
Walker is charged with visiting on the
night of his arrest.
The F.B.I. has identified Mr. Tka-
chenko as a vice consul in the consular
division of the Soviet Embassy in
Washington, a relatively low-ranking
diplomat.
Officials said that he may have been
one of a number of K.G.B. agents in the
embassy who were periodically as-
signed to pick up material left by Mr.
Walker at drop sites.
"Over the years, the case had be-
come routine," said David A. Philupss,
a former C.I.A. agent "`Moir uitTE re
over the years the yeomen got the job
of going to these drop sites."
Some intelligence analysts say they
believe that Mr. Walker's chief Soviet
contact is a senior K.G.B. official work-
ing in Moscow.
Mr. Crowley, who was the C.I.A.'s
assistant deputy director for oepra-
tions, said he suspects Mr. Walker may
have known the official for several
years, and perhaps even have been re-
cruited by him.
While moving up through the K.G.B.
hierarchy, the official probably turned
over the details of the case to other
agents, Mr. Crowley said. But he sug-
gested the official might have met with
Mr. Walker on occasion.
"He would still find time to fly in and
spend a few minutes with Walker," Mr.
Crowley said. "He would build Walk.
er's morale, tell, him how much the
work had meant to the Soviets."
They said that some spies who were
caught in the United States in recent
years had probably been given a uni-
form that he was allowed to wear at
meetings with Soviet agents. This, they
suggested, would have pleased Mr.
Walker, who has been described by a
former employee, 1k. K. Puma, as a
self-deluded "James Bond."
"It's very possible that he is a com-
modore or an admiral by now," said
Mr. Phillips, the former C.I.A. agent.
"That might appeal to Walker, and an
astute Soviet agent would know it."
Mr. Walker retired from the United
States Navy in 1976 as a chief warrant
officer. "Most warrant officers wonder
why they didn't become at least a sec-
ond lieutenant," Mr. Phillips said.
"Here was a situation where the Sovi-
ets could make him not only a second
lieutenant but an admiral."
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Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/19: CIA-RDP90-00552R000201670066-5