by Earley, Pete
John recognized the differences. “My God Arthur, no one feels comfortable smoking dope around you,” John complained one afternoon. “Everyone waits for you to go home before they light up.”
In early April 1982, John telephoned Arthur and told him that he desperately needed more classified documents.
“I’m really in a bind this time, Arthur. My back is against the wall. Isn’t there anything you can get for me? It would really be a good time if you can find something else.”
Arthur assured John that he’d try.
On April 28, Arthur called John with some good news. VSE had been hired to study the LHA class of amphibious assault ships. These Navy ships were used to carry as many as two thousand Marines and 150 officers to shore during an assault. Arthur knew that the Russian Navy was far behind in building attack craft such as the LHA class ships, and he thought John might be interested in some of the research material that VSE had been given.
In particular, VSE had access to a large volume of magnetic tapes that contained millions of tidbits of information about the assault ships. One item had caught Arthur’s interest. It was a computer printout of all the malfunctions and breakdowns aboard the assault ships during a five-year period.
The printout, known as a casualty report extract, also contained information about where the ship was located when the malfunction occurred, what the ship’s mission was, and how the mishap had affected the ship’s ability to perform in combat.
John didn’t quite understand why a computerized list of mechanical breakdowns was so important, but Arthur explained that a veteran engineer could use the data in a variety of ways. He could figure out how many U.S. assault ships at any given time were “combat ready.” He could determine how long the ships could be expected to operate before breaking down. He could determine the most common problem with assault ships and use that information to design a better vessel.
The new computer format intrigued Arthur.
“It’s in a wild, new format,” he explained. “It’s totally different than the casualty reports that you’ve seen in the past!”
“Sounds interesting,” said John.
“What’s it classified?”
“Either confidential or secret, not sure,” said Arthur. “Okay, I’ll come by for lunch tomorrow. Meet me in the parking lot for lunch and bring some pages.”
When Arthur got to work that morning, he walked to the VSE security office to check out the casualty reports file, but the security supervisor didn’t want to give it to him. Even though its classification was only confidential, the security officer felt squeamish about releasing it from the security office. He suggested that Arthur simply look through the book at a nearby table.
The normally genteel Arthur became incensed.
“I need this at my desk,” he insisted. “What’s the big problem, I’ve got a clearance!”
The security supervisor backed down.
Just before noon, Arthur rolled up a section of the file, tucked it under his arm with some other papers, and walked outside where John was waiting in his van. They rode to a nearby shopping center and parked outside a K-mart store.
Arthur was nervous. The confrontation with the security supervisor had upset him. “I’m going to get a soft drink,” he announced.
John was used to Arthur’s squeamishness. He looked over the computer printout while Arthur was gone, but he waited until Arthur returned to snap pictures.
“What the hell are you doing?” asked Arthur.
“I’m showing you how easy this all is,” replied John. “You don’t need to do this in my office, you can do it anywhere. Believe me, I used to do it aboard ships.”
John was using his Kodak 110 camera to take pictures of the computer printout as it rested on a seat of the van. “No special lighting or nothing. See how simple this is? You could do this at work if you didn’t mind pushing your balls to the wall. My man on the West Coast has a van just for this purpose.”
John had mentioned his “man on the West Coast” before. He was always telling Arthur how much money his partner was earning. Arthur assumed that John was talking about Jerry Whitworth because he knew that John and Jerry were close friends.
After John had taken about seven photographs, he told Arthur, “I’ll let you know if these are worth anything.”
Later that afternoon, John telephoned Arthur and suggested that he remove the remaining portions of the casualty report and photograph them that night.
Arthur objected. “I thought you were going to see if those pictures were worth the trouble?”
“No sense in returning the book and then checking it out again and again. That would look suspicious.”
Once again, John had forced Arthur to participate more deeply than he intended. Obediently, Arthur removed several more pages before he turned the book back to the security officer. That night, Arthur drove to john’s detective office to photograph the pages he had stolen.
“I thought I was going to have a heart attack,” he recalled. “I was so paranoid and scared. I knew I was going to get caught this time. Any moment, a gang of G-men were going to come bursting through John’s office door. I couldn’t believe that I was photographing this stupid report for him, and I promised myself that this was going to be the last time. I just couldn’t take it anymore – the pressure and the fear of getting caught. It was crazy. I mean, this report wasn’t worth all that tension and danger. I literally thought I was going to die while I was taking pictures.”
As he had done with the photographs of the U.S.S. Blue Ridge, Arthur left the film in John’s desk with a note. The next morning, Arthur returned the missing pages to the casualty report. When Arthur talked with John a few days later, he said, “Hey, John, no more photographing for me. I can’t do it. I can’t do, Bubba. If we find anything, you are going to find a way to do the snapping.” But Arthur didn’t have the courage to say he was finished as a spy. John was just too important to him.
That July, Arthur met Sheila Woods while working on a private detective case for John. A friend of Sheila’s had hired Confidential Reports and Arthur interviewed her as part of his investigation. She was recently divorced, the mother of two grown children, and close to Arthur in age. They liked each other from the start.
“I think the reason that Arthur and I became good friends,” Sheila told me later, “was because I honestly felt that I had walked in his footsteps and he in mine. We were the oldest children in our families and both of our fathers were alcoholics....”
In Sheila, Arthur found a sympathetic friend and listener. Before long, they were lovers. Arthur was careful to keep his affair secret from Rita, but John soon figured out what was going on and encouraged Arthur.
John was happy, he told me later, that Arthur was finally having a “little fun in his boring life.”
“Old Uncle Art was finally loosening up!”
Chapter 47
By the summer of 1982, Laura Walker was desperate. She and Mark were fighting incessantly, she wanted out of the marriage, but couldn’t leave without Christopher. The problem was money. It always was. She didn’t know whom she could borrow money from. Her father was still furious at her for not reenlisting and her mother was surviving from paycheck to paycheck. Laura began thinking of people she knew with cash. Jerry Whitworth!
When John, Jerry, Brenda, and Laura had gone to dinner together in February, Jerry seemed to be flaunting as much money as John. Laura began to wonder. Could he be a spy? Laura didn’t know the old Jerry, only the new Jerry Whitworth, John’s creation.
“Jerry was very much like my father,” she told me later. “In fact, he was so much like my father I could not tell who was copying who that night at dinner.”
Laura telephoned Jerry and he sounded excited to hear from her. Within a few minutes, he had invited her to dinner. When they met, she noticed that he had come alone, without Brenda. Laura assumed this was because Jerry didn’t want Brenda to know he was meeting with her, and Laura
took this as a good sign. But Jerry had another reason for not bringing along his wife. He knew that John had attempted to recruit Laura, and he didn’t want her bringing up espionage in front of Brenda.
Jerry and Laura had a good time that night. Jerry told great stories and was a good listener. He called her a short time after that dinner and they got together two more times, Laura told me later. It was during their last rendezvous that Laura asked Jerry to lend her $600. He wrote her a personal check.
“Jerry Whitworth flipped for me,” Laura Walker told me. “I knew it and understood it, but he didn’t make a pass until after I borrowed the money. That is when he made his overt sexual pass. He made his pass and when he found that he was going to be unsuccessful, he stopped.”
With Jerry’s money, Laura had a way out and she took it. She and Christopher moved into another apartment, leaving Mark behind. Before long, Laura began dating someone else-much to Mark’s irritation. He still hoped they could reconcile their problems.
About one month after Laura moved out, Mark went to her new apartment while she was at work and took Christopher. They left on a bus bound for Lanham, Maryland. After the Greyhound crossed into Nevada, Mark telephoned Laura and told her what he had done.
Up to this point, the marital strife between them had been limited to a husband-wife problem. But Mark’s decision to take Christopher made it into a Walker family problem. Laura Walker and Philip Mark Snyder both vehemently disagreed over what happened next. Both have testified under oath before a federal grand jury to exactly opposite stories.
“Mark reminded me during one of his phone calls,” Laura Walker told me, “that he knew my dad was a spy. I had told Mark about him earlier.... Mark told me, ‘I don’t want you to raise Chris anyway, especially with your family.’ Then he reminded me that he remembered what my dad was involved in. I understood completely what he was saying to me. He was blackmailing me, and I got on the phone and called my mom and said ‘You better call Dad and you better ten him that Mark knows!’ ”
Barbara Walker was furious when Laura told her what had happened. Why had Laura told Mark? She called Laura selfish and disloyal. But Barbara did as Laura had asked.
After talking with Barbara, John placed an angry call to Laura.
Laura later was questioned at Jerry Whitworth’s trial about that conversation. Under oath, she said her father had suggested that Mark might be killed.
LAURA: He [John] asked me how much I cared about my husband and how I would feel if he suddenly no longer existed.
Q: And what did you say?
A: I said I didn’t care.
Later, under examination by Whitworth’s defense attorney, Laura Walker expounded on her answer:
Q: What else did he [John] say to you?
A: He said that he couldn’t believe that I would tell my junkie husband about his private life. And then he asked me if I still loved him, and I said, “No.” Obviously, I wasn’t feeling very much love for him at that time. He just took my two-year-old son. And then he asked me how I would feel if he was not around anymore, and it was very clear to me what he was saying.
Q: What was he saying?
A: I felt that he was asking me how I would feel if my husband was dead by unnatural causes.
Philip Mark Snyder denied to me and in testimony to the grand jury that he ever blackmailed Laura. “Laura never told me about her father,” Mark Snyder said. “I never knew John Walker was a spy. Never! I swear it. It was a total He on her part.”
Mark Snyder accused Laura of “concocting” the blackmail story in an unsuccessful effort to get John to go after Christopher. “Laura is a very manipulative person,” Mark Snyder said. “I think she was trying to get her father to harm me. I think Laura was so angry that she wanted me dead.”
Whatever the truth, in the summer of 1982, John Walker believed Mark Snyder posed a threat to him and his ring. John was angry, but not enough to kill.
Instead, John figured that Mark would keep his mouth shut as long as he had Christopher.
“I couldn’t believe that cunt daughter of mine would do what she did,” John told me later. “And then when I talked to her she wants me to go get her son for her. I said. ‘Laura, you are a bitch, a cunt bitch. If you want your son, then go to Maryland and get him yourself. I am not going to get involved.’
“I didn’t think Laura was making any sense,” John continued. “I mean, she said Mark was going to turn me in if she went after Christopher. But then she wanted me to go after Christopher. Why would that make a difference? I mean, if I went after Christopher, what would keep Mark from turning me in? She was acting crazy.”
The message to Laura was clear. She became convinced that neither John nor Barbara was going to help her regain custody of her son if it meant putting the spy ring in jeopardy.
PART V
michael
Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.
– Proverbs 22:4
Few fathers care much for their sons, or at least, most of them care more for their money.
– Lord Chesterfield, Letters (May 21,1752)
Chapter 48
Michael Walker loved to surf and John gave him plenty of money to spend on gear. Surfing was more than a hobby to Michael. It signified a way of life.
“Riding waves was almost orgasmic,” Michael told me after his arrest. “You could put the most beautiful woman in the world naked on the beach and have an eight-foot perfect wave coming in, and a true male surfer would have to think twice about which he would choose.”
Surfing was carefree, exciting, sexy.
“It was what I wanted to do.”
Just before his high school graduation, Michael enlisted in the Navy. His surfer friends were stunned, and his closest surfing pal felt betrayed. Joining the Navy was for nerds, not carefree surfers. Michael didn’t care. He had done this for his father as he had promised, a reverse graduation present of sorts. Michael hadn’t told John what he was doing. He just did it, and at first, he wasn’t certain that the Navy would take him. When the recruiter asked if Michael had ever used any narcotics or had smoked marijuana, Michael answered truthfully. As a result, he was sent to the district recruitment command in Richmond, where he was issued a special drug waiver. At that time, the Navy told Michael that he probably wouldn’t be allowed to handle classified documents because of his self-acknowledged use of drugs. But apparently no one made such a notation in his Navy personnel file.
John beamed when Michael announced that he had enlisted. “You’ve really made your old man proud,” he said.
Because Michael was still a senior in high school, his entry date was delayed until December 1982, eight months away. Michael planned to surf as much as possible that summer and fall, but John had other ideas. He insisted that Michael enroll in typing and math courses at Tidewater Community College.
“These are skills you’ll need to get a job with access to classified information,” John explained. “Those are the best types of jobs.”
Michael wasn’t thrilled, but he did as he was told. The classes weren’t difficult, and he still could surf in the mornings.
One spring night, Michael stopped by The Lone Pine, a Virginia Beach restaurant, to talk to his dad.
“P.K. and I started going over to The Lone Pine every night,” John recalled later, “because a lot of lawyers and insurance agents used to hang out there.”
It was important for John to mingle with potential clients because his business partner, Phil Prince, had pulled out. After nearly two years together, the two men couldn’t get along anymore, so Prince had signed over his share of the company to John.
Michael found his father, P.K., and Uncle Arthur all drunk. Someone was celebrating a birthday and John had ordered a special cake shaped like a nude woman. When the guest of honor went to the bathroom, one of the men at the party unzipped his pants and stuck his penis in the absent person’s drink.
“When
the guy got back from the bathroom and took a drink, everyone cracked up,” Michael told me later. “My dad knew how to throw some great parties.”
Michael, soon as drunk as his father, accidentally crashed into the front desk where a young cashier, Rachel Sara Allen, worked. Neither of them paid any attention to the other.
A few days later, John asked Rachel if she would like to spend Father’s Day with him, P.K., and Michael on the houseboat. Rachel politely declined, but John persisted. Rachel was suspicious. She thought John might be attempting to get her alone on the boat.
John wouldn’t give up. He called her that weekend. “Michael is really excited about you coming over,” John said. “You can’t let him down.”
As she drove to John’s house that afternoon, Rachel reviewed what she knew about her host. He had been one of the first regular customers she had met working that spring at The Lone Pine. With his “plastic hair,” girlfriend half his age, and his endless supply of cash, John stuck out.
She and John became friends by accident when she chastised him one night for playing the bar’s video game.
“You waste too much money on that,” she told him. The nineteen-year-old’s impertinence surprised John.
“From now on,” Rachel continued, “every time you bring me a dollar, I’m going to give you seventy-five cents and I’ll keep a quarter up here so you’ll have some money when you go home.”
John liked that.
Soon, Rachel had met all of John’s crew: Uncle Art, P.K., and the other investigators from Confidential Reports. Now she was about to meet Michael.
Rachel wasn’t eager to fall in love. The five-foot two-inch blonde was on the rebound from her first serious love affair, and she didn’t have a very good impression of men.
Rachel had had a difficult childhood. Her parents divorced when she was five, years old, and she had hated her stepfather. As a child, she developed into a bookworm and spent much of her days alone. Her only date during high school was to the junior prom, which she attended with her chemistry lab partner, a boy who, like her, hadn’t dated before.