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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, JUNE 7, 1985
PAGE 13
As always with espionage, a big question was what might have
moved the suspects to risk getting caught. The pivotal spy cases
of the cold-war era--Kim Philby's coldblooded sellout of his Bri
tish and American colleagues, Klaus Fuch's release of atom-bomb
secrets--appeared to grow out of ideological disaffection with
the West. But John Walker, in particular, seems all too typical
of today's fiftnc:olumnists:""T"t was the money that�ttered. His
style and self-image were apparently too expans'Ive. Despite his
$13,000-a-year Navy pension, despite the silver-market killings
he claimed--FBI agents found 10 one hundred-ounce silver bars
worth $6,000 in a safe-deposit box--and despite the properties he
owned, the detective agencies may not have been enough.... His
stepmother, Dorothy Walker ("Personally, I never liked the boy"),
says Walker frequently complained of not having enough money.
Indeed, last week he had to ask for a public defender.
The largest question, however, remained: how much damage has been
done? Intelligence-community officials are sharply divi
°
ded••.•
But one thing is clear: espionage in the United States is a grow
ing problem and there is no obvious solution•••. And while secu
rity reviews for Americans are notoriously lax--a check of John
Walker would have suggested his vulnerability--this country's
open-society traditions discourage Big Brother tactics like an
nual polygraphs.
Money then, was the real motive, and the communists know how to play on what
they call "capitalist gre·
ed.
11
Their agents search out victims with various
suspected vices such as money-lust, women or homosexuality. It's also in
teresting to note, as revealed in the following June 5 UPI dispatch, that
John Walker's ex-wife decided to talk for personal reasons, not out of any
concern for the welfare of the country.
On the verge of tears, the ex-wife of accused spymaster John
Walker said she was doing what she "believed in" when she exposed
what authorities.labeled Wednesday as the biggest Soviet espion
age ring found in the United States in 30 years... • A law en
forcement official said the arrests appeared to have unearthed
the biggest U.S. spy operation since the celebrated case of
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, executed in 1953 for smuggling
secrets about atomic weapons to the Soviet Union....
Barbara Walker, who was divorced from John Walker nine years ago,
said she delayed going to authorities to protect her family,
which she called her "first priority," the Cape Cod newspaper re
ported Wednesday. "Why in the name of all that's holy did I wait
so long?" she asked. "You have the answer. It is because of what
is happening to my family and my children.
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She said Michael
Walker, her son who also is charged with espionage, "is very im
portant to me." Since the public disclosures, she told the news
paper, her family has been "harassed" by the news media about the
arrests and it appeared the drama surrounding the Walker family
was only beginning to unfold.