Walker gained custody of his son, put him to work as an apprentice at his detective agency in order to prepare him for espionage and encouraged him to re-enroll in high school to earn a diploma, then to enlist in the Navy. Michael Barton was sentenced for life on December 1, 2005 for the murder of 18-year-old Anthony Walker (Image: Getty Images). John Anthony Walker is within the scope of WikiProject Espionage, which aims to improve Wikipedia's coverage of espionage, intelligence, and related topics. [9], John Walker was promoted to warrant officer in March 1967 and in April was assigned as a communications watch officer at the headquarters of COMSUBLANT in Norfolk, Virginia, where his responsibilities included "running the entire communications center for the submarine force...."[9] Walker began spying for the Soviets in late 1967,[11][12] when, distraught over his financial difficulties, he walked into the old Soviet embassy in Washington, D.C., sold a top-secret document (a radio cipher card) for several thousand dollars, and negotiated an ongoing salary of US$500 (equivalent to $3,834 in 2019) to US$1,000 (equivalent to $7,668 in 2019) a week. His father was reportedly a … And in early 1968 they captured the Pueblo, they took it into Wonsan Harbor, they quickly took the machines off ... flew 'em to Moscow. Later that evening about 8:30 p.m. he drove to a rural area in Montgomery County, Maryland, where he was seen placing a package in a wooded area near a "No Hunting" sign. Criminal or Civil Court records found on John's Background Report Lawsuits, Liens or Bankruptcies found on John's Background Report Criminal or Civil Court records found on John's Family, Friends, Neighbors, or Classmates View Details New York: Basic Books, 2005. Join Facebook to connect with Anthony John Walker and others you may know. https://www.fbi.gov/history/famous-cases/year-of-the-spy-1985 "[4], After Walker's arrest, Caspar Weinberger, President Ronald Reagan's Secretary of Defense, concluded that the Soviet Union made significant gains in naval warfare attributable to Walker's spying. He accepted Christ at a young age at Flatrock Baptist Church. [7], Walker was born in Washington, D.C., on July 28, 1937[8] and he attended high school in Scranton, Pennsylvania. View the profiles of people named Anthony John Walker. Walker’s espionage began in 1967 when he walked into the Soviet Embassy in Washington, D.C., with material that would allow the Soviets to read encrypted naval messages. [26][27] He would have become eligible for parole in 2015. when his life was cut short. Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. The entrepreneurial John Jr. secured a pa… Arthur Walker and Jerry Whitworth were arrested by the FBI in Norfolk, Virginia, and Sacramento, California, respectively. Walker was a Navy communication … He agreed to submit to an unchallenged conviction and life sentence, to provide a full disclosure of the details of his spying and to testify against Whitworth in exchange for a pledge from the prosecutors that the maximum sentence requested for Michael was 25 years imprisonment, which was later Michael's sentence. John Anthony Walker Jr. (July 28, 1937 – August 28, 2014) was a United States Navy chief warrant officer and communications specialist convicted of spying for the Soviet Union from 1968 to 1985 and sentenced to life in prison. [citation needed] Independent analysis of Walker's methods by an American Naval officer in Cold War London, Lieutenant Commander David Winters, led to operational introduction of technologies – such as over-the-air rekeying – that finally closed security gaps previously exploited by the Walker spy ring. John and Barbara Walker divorced in 1976. Michael Walker was arrested aboard Nimitz, where investigators found a footlocker full of copies of classified matter. He dropped out of high school in Scranton, Pennsylvania, during his junior year after attempting a burglary. [9] Walker continued spying, receiving an income of several thousand dollars per month for supplying classified information. [11] Furthermore, a 2001 thesis presented at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College using information obtained from Soviet archives and from Oleg Kalugin, indicated that the Pueblo incident may have taken place because the Soviets wanted to study equipment described in documents supplied to them by Walker. [24] He was said to suffer from diabetes mellitus and stage 4 throat cancer. john anthony walker 35 nursery road, davyhulme john anthony walker greenacre 24 oakley road, chinnor john anthony walker 30 stratford way bramley, rotherham john anthony walker 8 crawford mews, ashton under lyne john anthony walker 21 doctors fields earl shilton, leicester He was tried, convicted, and sentenced to three life sentences in a federal district court in Norfolk. ; Invite John Anthony Walker to audition to your new or existing project. John Anthony Walker Jr. was born in the nation's capital July 28, 1937, the second of three boys. Whitworth was incarcerated at the United States Penitentiary, Atwater, a high-security federal prison in California. Summary: John Walker's birthday is 11/17/1960 and is 59 years old. SOSUS-Wikipedia. The children are precious. In the 1980s, several members of the Walker spy ring were prosecuted and convicted of espionage for the Soviets. John, who is 76, is scheduled for parole on May 20, 2015, but is in the later stages of throat cancer, according to a family friend. John Walker, who has been charged with operating a Navy spy ring that passed secret documents to the Soviet Union for at least 20 years, retired from the Navy in … [17] The Toshiba-Kongsberg scandal was disclosed in this activity in 1987. In 1985, dubbed by the press as the “Year of the Spy,” former U.S. Navy warrant officer John Anthony Walker, Jr. was arrested for selling U.S. secrets to the Soviet Union. (July 2002), Cherkashin, Victor. (Page 183), Federal Correctional Institution, Butner Low, U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive, Blind Man's Bluff: The Untold Story of American Submarine Espionage, "Family of Spies: The John Walker Jr. Spy Case", "The Navy's Biggest Betrayal - U.S. [1] Walker was incarcerated at FCC Butner, in the low security portion. Walker was eighteen years old and in his second year of A-levels. John Anthony Walker, Jr. (July 28, 1937 – August 28, 2014) was a United States Navy Chief Warrant Officer and communications specialist convicted of spying for the Soviet Union from 1968 to 1985. He also periodically met his Soviet handlers in foreign locations such as Casablanca, Morocco, and Vienna, Austria. If you would like to participate, visit the project page, or contribute to the discussion. You can start working with John Anthony Walker in four simple steps: Sign Up or Log In to your Voices.com account. Walker used most of the money to pay off his delinquent debts and to move his family into better neighborhoods, but he also set aside some for future investment, such as turning around the fortunes of his money-losing bar by hiring a skilled bartender. NKIDP e-Dossier No. [1] Walker justified his treachery by claiming that the first classified Navy communications data he sold to the Soviets had already been completely compromised when the North Koreans had captured the U.S. Navy communications surveillance ship, USS Pueblo. John Anthony Walker, Jr., retired from the US Navy in 1976 as a Warrant Officer, having previously served as a radio operator and technical communications expert. Ring in the new year with a Britannica Membership, This article was most recently revised and updated by, https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Walker-American-spy, Independent - John Walker: American naval officer who formed a family spy ring that passed highly damaging secrets to the Soviet Union, The Telegraph - Ex-US sailor John A. Walker who spied for Soviets dies in prison hospital, The Washington Post - John A. Walker Jr., who led family spy ring, dies at 77, The New York Times - John A. Walker Jr., Ringleader of Spy Family, Dies at 77. Corrections? [1] While Walker occasionally used the services of his wife, Barbara Walker, he anticipated the possibility of losing access due to reassignment. John Lewis Anthony Waller Pictures. The interplay between home, the office, and the boat keep you edgy. From 1955 to 1976 he served as radioman on a succession of surface ships and nuclear submarines, rising to petty officer, chief petty officer, and warrant officer. When Walker began spying, he worked as a key supervisor in the communications center for the U.S. Atlantic Fleet's submarine force, and he would have had knowledge of top-secret technologies, such as the SOSUS underwater surveillance system, which tracks underwater acoustics via a network of submerged hydrophones. [1] After dropping out of high school, Walker and a friend staged a series of burglaries on May 27, 1955. [9] Whitworth, who would become a Navy senior chief petty officer/senior chief radioman, agreed to help Walker gain access to highly classified communications data in 1973;[1] and served aboard Niagara Falls after Walker retired from the Navy. [9] He was offered the option of jail or the military. Choose from a great range of Anthony Waller Pictures. In 1967 Walker walked into the Soviet embassy in Washington, D.C., and offered to sell information. Barton was found guilty … Who knows what is next? In the aftermath of my dear Anthony’s passing, my family and I decided it was necessary for us to establish the Foundation. His parents had moved from the Scranton, Pa., area so his father could take a government job. Their marriage was marked by physical abuse and alcohol. Background details that you might want to know about John include: ethnicity is Caucasian, whose political affiliation is currently a registered Republican; and religious views are listed as Christian. The espionage activities of the Walker spy ring were described by some officials as among the gravest security breaches in the history of the U.S. Navy. Bankrupt, the family moved near the boy's grandparents in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Mr. Walker was born on May 20, 1958 to Mrs. Ezelle Walker Young in Rome, Georgia. When the FBI in Norfolk reviewed the report the counterintelligence squad concluded it might be a truthful report and initiated a discreet investigation. [7], In the spring of 1968 John Walker's wife discovered items in his desk at home causing her to suspect he was acting as a spy. [13] Yet the Koreans captured Pueblo in late January 1968 – many weeks after Walker had betrayed the information. By 1980 Barbara had begun regularly abusing alcohol and was very fearful for her children. 5", "John A. Walker Jr., who led family spy ring, dies at 77", Espionage against the United States by American citizens, 1947-2001, "Analysis of the Systemic Security Weaknesses of the U.S. Navy Fleet Broadcasting System, 1967–1974, as Exploited by CWO John Walker", "The John Walker Spy Case: Secrets of the Deep Agent May be Linked to USS, "TV View; American spies in pursuit of the American dream", "The ultimate export control: why F-14s are being put into a shredder", "Convicted spy Arthur Walker dies in prison in N.C.", How to Publish a Book by an Odious Person, "John A. Walker Jr., Ringleader of Spy Family, Dies at 77", "Ex-US sailor John A. Walker who spied for Soviets dies in prison hospital", "Spy ring mastermind John Walker dies in N.C. prison", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=John_Anthony_Walker&oldid=1004909584, American people convicted of spying for the Soviet Union, American people who died in prison custody, American prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment, Persons convicted under the Espionage Act of 1917, Prisoners and detainees of the United States federal government, Prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment by the United States federal government, Prisoners who died in United States federal government detention, Short description is different from Wikidata, Pages using infobox criminal with motive parameter, Articles with unsourced statements from May 2016, Articles with unsourced statements from August 2014, Wikipedia articles with SNAC-ID identifiers, Wikipedia articles with SUDOC identifiers, Wikipedia articles with WORLDCATID identifiers, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, This page was last edited on 5 February 2021, at 01:13. Nicknamed "Smilin' Jack," he attended Catholic school and became an altar boy; however, his childhood was traumatic. John Anthony Walker, a US Navy Chief Warrant Officer and communications specialist, divulged SOSUS operational information to the Soviet Union during the Cold War which compromised its effectiveness. The Boston office of the FBI interviewed Barbara Walker and initially considered her story to be the rantings of a drunken, bitter woman trying to "drop a dime" on an ex-husband. John Anthony Walker Jr. (July 28, 1937 – August 28, 2014) was an American criminal and spy.He served as a United States Navy Chief Warrant Officer and communications specialist. Walker's older brother Arthur received three life sentences plus 40 years and died in the Butner Federal Correctional Complex in Butner, North Carolina on July 5, 2014, six weeks before the death of his younger brother. Park any subtlety at the threshold. While stationed in Boston, Walker met and married Barbara Crowley, and they had four children together, three daughters and a son. Since Barbara's report regarded a person who lived in Virginia, the Boston office sent the report to the Norfolk office. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. Updates? John Walker, in full John Anthony Walker, Jr., (born July 28, 1937, Washington, D.C.—died August 28, 2014, Butner, North Carolina), U.S. Navy communications specialist who for almost two decades (1967–85) passed classified documents, including navy code books and reports on movements of submarines and surface ships, to agents of the Soviet Union. [2] During his time as a Soviet spy, Walker helped the Soviets decipher more than one million encrypted naval messages,[3] organizing a spy operation that The New York Times reported in 1987 "is sometimes described as the most damaging Soviet spy ring in history. He received a life sentence and ultimately died in prison. In May 1985 the FBI learned through the electronic surveillance that it was likely that John Walker would travel out of town on the weekend of May 18 and 19, 1985. 1985 - JOHN ANTHONY WALKER, and his son, MICHAEL LANCE WALKER, were indicted 28 May 1985 by a Federal grand jury in Baltimore on six counts of espionage. During the arrest of Arthur Walker, he was read his rights and repeatedly told he needed to stay silent until he could retain a lawyer, but kept admitting complicity in an effort to "show remorse". He dreamed of one day becoming a … [2], In late 1985, Walker made a plea bargain with federal prosecutors, which required him to provide full details of his espionage activities and testify against his co-conspirator, former senior chief petty officer Jerry Whitworth. By 1984, he had recruited his older brother Arthur, a retired lieutenant commander who then went to work at a military contractor, and his son Michael, an active duty seaman. Later, when Whitworth realized the data was going to the Soviets instead of Israel, he nonetheless continued supplying Walker with information, until Whitworth's retirement from the Navy in 1983. Theodore Shackley, the CIA station chief in Saigon, asserted that Walker's espionage may have contributed to diminished B-52 bombing strikes, that the forewarning gleaned from Walker's espionage directly affected the United States' effectiveness in Vietnam. There will be a memorial service to celebrate John's life at the Off Broadway Theatre (opposite the RSA), 41 Elliot Street Papakura on Sunday February 25th at 2pm. Join Facebook to connect with Anthony John Walker and others you may know. While stationed in Boston, Walker met and married Barbara Crowley, and they had four children together, three daughters and a son. [15][16] It was through Walker that the Soviets became aware that the U.S. Navy was able to track the location of Soviet submarines by the cavitation produced by their propellers. And with Walker providing the code cards, this was one-half of what they needed to read the messages. John Walker AP John A. Walker, Jr., and his son, Michael, both Navy men, delivered key information to the Soviet Union from 1967 until 1985. On May 19 Walker left his house in Norfolk and was followed covertly by the FBI to the Washington, D.C., area, where the surveillance was joined by personnel from the FBI's Washington field office. When both Barbara Walker and Laura Walker passed polygraph examinations, electronic surveillance was authorized by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court against John Walker.