“Everyone makes a big deal out of the fact that I became a spy. It's because spying is such an unusual crime, but what they don't understand is that I became a spy because that is what I had access to. If I'd worked in a bank, I would have taken money. If I'd had access to dope, I would have sold drugs. The fact that I became a spy is really insignificant. The point is that I became a spy because I needed money. It was as simple as that.” John Walker quoted in the book, Family of Spies: Inside the John Walker Spy Ring, authored by Pete Early (New York: Bantam Books, 1988).
John Walker was born on 28 July 1937, the second son of James and Peggy Walker. His home life and upbringing was less than ideal, to say the least; his father was a violent alcoholic who eventually drove the family to bankruptcy and then abandoned them. As an adolescent, John Walker became first a troublemaker and eventually a petty criminal. After a high-speed chase through town when he was 17, he was caught by the police for burglarizing a men’s clothing store and a gas station. Arthur Walker, his older brother, had joined the U.S. Navy directly after graduating high school. Arthur Walker intervened and convinced the judge to allow John to join the U.S. Navy as well. It was quite common at the time to force problematic young men into military service in lieu of serving jail time. The school of thought was that military service would straighten him out and give him discipline and a direction in life. John Walker seemed to exemplify this school of thought. He entered the U.S. Navy in 1956 as a Radioman, and seemed to thrive. There is no record of discipline problems, and he made a very favorable impression on his Chain of Command. He was promoted quickly, achieving a rating of RM1 (E-6) in only six years, and his evaluation reports were almost perfect (4.0) ratings. He got his girlfriend, Barbara Crowley, pregnant, and he and married her in 1957. Their first child, Margaret Ann, was born that same year. Their second child, Laura, was born in early 1960. On the recommendation of his brother Arthur, he volunteered for submarine duty (Arthur was also a submariner). He was accepted for submarine training in June, followed by an assignment to the USS Razorback, based in San Diego, California. In 1962, he was reassigned to the newly commissioned USS Andrew Jackson, based out of Charleston, South Carolina. At a glance, John Walker appeared to have moved beyond his questionable past and matured into a responsible petty officer and family man. Closer inspection reveals a much different situation. While his duty performance remained high, his home life was growing ever more hostile. Both John and Barbara Walker were drinking heavily, and John Walker was spending an inordinate amount of time partying with his fellow sailors rather than home with his family.
He was first submitted for a TOP SECRET security clearance while assigned to the USS Andrew Jackson. The TOP SECRET security clearance was granted on 29 December 1964. In 1965, he was promoted to chief petty officer and reassigned to the USS Simon Bolivar, a newly commissioned nuclear ballistic missile submarine also based out of Charleston, South Carolina. In 1966, he was promoted to warrant officer. That same year, became an entrepreneur and started a business of his own. He borrowed over $20,000 in loans to set up the Bamboo Snack Bar, a bar and snack shop in close proximity to the U.S. Navy base where he was assigned. The business did not make a profit the entire time it was open. By 1967, the Walkers were on the verge of bankruptcy. This added financial stress to his already tenuous home life.
In November, 1967, John Walker was reassigned as a watch officer in the submarine fleet message center, Naval Communications Master Station (NAVCAMS), Atlantic fleet, at Norfolk Naval Base, Norfolk, Virginia. His family stayed in South Carolina to run the Bamboo Snack Bar. In December 1967, he returned to South Carolina with several hundred dollars in cash, Christmas gifts, and more money to pay off some of the overdue loans. He told his wife he had a second job, but Barbara Walker did not believe him. Because of his past, she assumed he got the money through criminal activity. When his family moved to Norfolk in 1968, she discovered he had rented an expensive apartment for the family, and they spent over $10,000 in cash on new furnishings for the apartment. In the apartment, she found instructions for delivering classified materials to his handlers. When she confronted John Walker with what she found, he admitted to spying for the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). He said the USSR paid him $4,000 a month, plus bonuses, for stealing secrets from the NAVCAMS vaults.
John Walker felt highly stressed about his espionage. The stress took a toll on his duty performance. The period of 1968-1969 was the only time in his career where he received less than excellent duty ratings. His stress led him to believe his supervisors were starting to be suspicious of him. His supervisors were not suspicious of him for espionage, but they did think he was a careless, obnoxious individual. They also thought poorly of him for his adulterous behavior and open womanizing, but they never thought he was conducting espionage for the USSR.
Because of his paranoia of being caught, he asked for a transfer away from Norfolk in mid-1969. He was reassigned as an instructor at the radioman school in San Diego, California. During this assignment, he realized that his espionage would be less dangerous if he recruited someone else to do the actual spying and serve instead as a go-between or spymaster. He carefully probed the students for weaknesses, and would eventually recruit one of them. He recruited Jerry Whitworth to spy for him after Whitworth retired in 1974.
After his transfer to the radioman school, the USSR reduced his salary to $2,000 a month because he no longer had access to key materials. $2,000 was not enough for John Walker to maintain the lifestyle he was accustomed to so he volunteered to transfer to a sea duty billet so he could access a COMSEC vault again.
In late 1971, he was reassigned to the USS Niagara Falls, a resupply ship based in Oakland, California. The USS Niagara Falls was slated to sail in support of operations off the coast of Vietnam. Aboard the USS Niagara Falls, he was assigned as the Classified Material System (CMS) custodian. This gave him full access to all cryptographic and classified material onboard. While off the coast of Vietnam, he repeatedly volunteered to serve as a courier for classified materials, both between Navy ships and between shore bases and ships. This aided his espionage because the USSR paid him extra money if he could get additional classified information.
Upon his return from the Vietnam deployment, he learned that his family had discovered the location of all the money the USSR had paid him thus far. His family had spent all the money, making him broke. This prompted him to file for a divorce from his wife. In return for her silence regarding his espionage activities, he promised to pay Barbara Walker an extra $1,000 per month in addition to the court mandated $500 per month child support. The $1,500 per month equaled his total legitimate salary he earned from the U.S. Navy. When he learned that Barbara Walker was hinting to people she knew about his espionage activities, he decided to get out of the U.S. navy as a matter of self preservation. He spent the last two years of his U.S. Navy career supervising the distribution of classified material in Norfolk, VA. He retired from the U.S. Navy on 31 July 1976.
After John Walker retired, he worked as a private investigator in and around Norfolk, Virginia. The majority of his income, however, came from operating an espionage ring that eventually included his former student Jerry Whitworth, his brother Arthur Walker, and his son Michael Walker. The recruitment of his family members is what eventually led to his capture.
In November 1984, Barbara Walker reported him to the local Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) office in Hyannis, Massachusetts, for two reasons. First, John Walker he had stopped paying her the $1,000 per month to not discuss his espionage activities. Second, Barbara Walker was livid at John Walker’s attempts to recruit their daughter Laura Walker. The FBI agent who interviewed her thought that she was drunk and rambling, which may have been true. The FBI agent felt Barbara Walker falsified the story to get revenge on an ex-husband. However, since the crime was alleged to have taken place in Norfolk, the report was forwarded to the Norfolk FBI office for final disposition with a recommendation that it simply be closed and filed. The report made its way to Special Agent (SA) Robert Hunter, who was in charge of espionage cases at that office. SA Hunter thought there may be some truth to the story and began a preliminary investigation to ascertain if the story could be corroborated. As the details were corroborated, the investigation began to gain momentum. After months of meticulous investigative work, the FBI caught John Walker in the act of leaving a bag containing 129 classified documents, disguised as a bag of trash, by the side of the road for pickup by a Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti (KGB) officer assigned to the USSR embassy in Washington, District of Columbia.
Throughout his time conducting espionage, John Walker exhibited numerous indicators of suspicious behavior. These exhibited indicators include, but are not limited to, undue affluence, reversal of debt, repeatedly volunteering for positions which allow him access to TOP SECRET information, and living beyond his means.