Family of Spies: Inside the John Walker Spy Ring (41 page)

Chapter 65

“My name is Laura Mae Walker Snyder. Today’s date is March 25, 1985.... I’m going to be calling John Walker ... in Norfolk, Virginia.”

JOHN:
Hello?

LAURA:
Urn, hi.

JOHN:
Hi.

LAURA:
Do you know who this is?

JOHN:
No.

LAURA:
This is Laura.

JOHN:
Laura?

LAURA:
Yes, a voice-

JOHN:
Laura Walker?

LAURA:
Yes, that Laura.

JOHN:
Well, I’ll be damned. I didn’t figure I’d ever hear from you....

As the tape recording of Laura’s telephone call to John indicates, she fulfilled her promise to the agents. Once John got over his surprise, his conversation ranged over familiar territory, berating Barbara with his usual profanity and assailing Laura for the way she had run her life.

She turned the subject to spying, as she had promised Hunter and Culligan, and talked about her veteran’s status and about the Kodak plant. When the subject shifted to Mark, John was furious again about Laura’s “telling that guy something as private as what we discussed.”

“Well, I got desperate,” Laura said. “But I think now ... he’s so stoned and so gone that he doesn’t even know his name anymore.”

“Well, the problem is that makes him dangerous,” John answered.

Despite Laura’s bait, John didn’t say anything incriminating. Still, the call convinced the FBI that John was someone to be taken seriously.

Though signed statements by Barbara and Laura, even though they had been verified by polygraph, were not sufficient for the FBI to seek criminal charges against John, the FBI and the Justice Department agreed that the tape recording and the statements were enough to request permission to tap John’s telephone.

On April 5, a court approved the placing of wiretaps on telephones in John’s house, office, and houseboat. It would take the FBI six days to install the wiretaps and begin its twenty-four-hour monitoring. In the meantime, the FBI faced a problem that threatened to unravel its investigation. Barbara Walker announced that she was coming to Norfolk to visit Margaret.

Hunter and Wolfinger were uneasy. At the time, all they knew about Barbara was that she was an alcoholic who had tried in the past, according to her statements, to turn John in. If she backed down now and alerted John, he could destroy whatever evidence might exist at his home and cover his tracks.

Barbara arrived at Margaret’s apartment during the first week of April, and Hunter and FBI agent Beverly Andress telephoned her immediately to arrange a clandestine meeting. Hunter had asked Andress to join him because he knew some women felt more comfortable talking to another woman rather than a man.

It was crucial that he and Andress not upset Barbara.

They met Barbara at a parking lot near Margaret’s apartment, motioned her into the back seat of Hunter’s sedan, and sped away to a section of Norfolk where they felt confident she wouldn’t be recognized.

Hunter was startled when he met Barbara. He hadn’t expected her to be well tailored, attractive, and articulate.

After listening to John’s tape-recorded telephone conversation with Laura, Hunter expected Barbara to be as uncouth as her ex-husband, “It was hard for me to believe that he talked to his own daughter the way he did, using the language he did,” Hunter told me later. “I heard an anger, an arrogance, particularly in the way he referred to women as bitches and cunts. I thought John was one of the most profane guys I’d ever heard.”

But Barbara had a certain polish. Hunter and Andress both had studied the six-page investigative report that Walter Price had written after a follow-up interview he had with Barbara on March 19.

At that point, Barbara had told the FBI that John had two spying partners: Arthur Walker and a close friend of John’s named “Jerry Wentworth.”

Laura had said Jerry’s last name was “Wittemore.” Neither Hunter nor Andress pressured Barbara for more details; instead they worked at gaining her trust by sympathizing with her. Although Barbara was noticeably tense, she clearly wanted to follow up on her accusations. She wanted John stopped, she said.

But just as the two agents began to relax, Barbara announced that she had telephoned Arthur on the same night that she had called the FBI and had warned him. She also had called John that night and threatened to turn him in to the FBI.

Near panic, Hunter quizzed Barbara about how John and Arthur had responded. Did they believe that she had called the FBI? Did she think either of them was aware of the FBI investigation? Barbara didn’t know.

“That interview was the beginning of a very stressful week,” Hunter recalled. “We had a real control problem with Barbara.”

Back at the Norfolk FBI office, Hunter and Wolfinger decided to literally hold Barbara’s hand every day to make certain she didn’t flip-flop. Margaret Walker also scared them. Barbara had told the FBI that Margaret knew about the investigation. Barbara had also said that Margaret had a good relationship with her father and was caught between “a rock and hard place – her father and me.”

Which, the agents wondered, would Margaret choose?

The morning after their first meeting, Barbara telephoned Hunter to tell him some details she had remembered about the mysterious Wentworth. Hunter kept the conversation upbeat and thanked her repeatedly for calling.

But the next day, neither Hunter nor Andress could reach Barbara on the telephone. Both were concerned, but they decided there was little that they could do. They couldn’t drive to Margaret’s apartment. What if John showed up unexpectedly?

Another day passed and Barbara remained out of communication. Now the agents were alarmed. Where had Barbara gone? What had happened? Had she changed her mind? Had she met with John?

On April 8, Barbara resurfaced. “I’ve seen John,” she announced over the telephone. Trying to remain calm, Hunter arranged an immediate meeting. Whenever Hunter and Andress conducted an interview, they filed a written report on government form FD-302, referred to as 302 statements by investigators. The 302 statement that Hunter and Andress wrote after meeting with Barbara Walker was quickly classified as secret and sent overnight to the foreign counterintelligence office in Washington for review. In part, it said:

Barbara Walker saw her former husband, John Anthony Walker, Jr., on April 7, 1985, when he visited their daughter, Margaret ... at her home.

John told Barbara he wanted to talk to her for a couple of hours before she went home ... Mrs. Walker advised that during her last visit in August ... she talked to Michael Walker about his father’s illegal activities. Mrs. Walker advised that Michael talked her out of reporting John Walker to the FBI because it would hurt Michael’s Navy career. She does not believe that John Walker has recruited Michael to commit espionage, but advised that Michael has worked for his father doing surveillance connected with his private detective business.

Mrs. Walker advised John Walker has talked to their daughter, Margaret, concerning comments Barbara made about reporting his activities to the FBI. She advised that John Walker has commented to Margaret that he was surprised he had not been arrested yet, and that he had “done something good and the kids would hate their mother for turning him in.”

Based on that 302 statement, the FBI began a discreet investigation of Michael Walker.

Both Hunter and Andress urged Barbara to stay away from John and stressed repeatedly how important she was to their investigation and how much they appreciated her patriotism. The Justice Department also made it clear that in return for Barbara’s cooperation, she would be granted total immunity from any prosecution.

Hunter felt more squeamish than ever about his case. The wiretaps still hadn’t been installed and he knew John was pressuring Barbara to meet with him. The fact that John had discussed Barbara’s threats with Margaret meant he was aware that the FBI could be watching him. Obviously, he would be on guard.

Something else Barbara had said also worried Hunter – that her son Michael was in the Navy and had urged her last fall not to turn John in. Yet she claimed Michael wasn’t involved in the spy ring.

Her thinking seemed naive, but Hunter didn’t press the point. He didn’t want to do anything that might spook Barbara. Turning in an ex-husband would be difficult enough. If Barbara realized she was also turning in her son, she might withdraw.

On April 9, Beverly Andress and Barbara held another secret session. Andress’s 302 statement recounted the meeting:

Mrs. Walker advised she never understood why John Walker would “commit treason.” She believed that while he was successful in his naval career, he could not accept the business failures. Barbara Walker stated that she lived with the knowledge of her husband’s treason and that concern for her family kept her from contacting the FBI. ... Laura’s estranged husband, who has some knowledge of John Walker’s espionage activities, has stated to Laura that if she attempts to gain custody of their son, Christopher, he will turn John Walker in. Mrs. Walker stated she could not justify John Walker’s
activities and finally could not accept how his actions were affecting their daughter as well as their grandson.

Back at the FBI office in Norfolk, Hunter and Wolfinger went over the facts as they knew them. By now, they were confident John and Arthur were Soviet spies, that John had tried to recruit Laura, that Michael knew about his dad’s espionage, and that Laura’s husband was allegedly blackmailing her to maintain custody of their son.

On April 10, Hunter and Andress telephoned Barbara and held an- other parking lot rendezvous. Barbara told them she had agreed to meet with John that evening. Once again, they urged Barbara to put off the meeting. Even if she didn’t intend to tip John off, she might accidentally warn him by appearing nervous.

“Okay,” Barbara said. “I’ll try to cancel.”

Hunter and Andress could do little but return to their office and pace. John was scheduled to pick up Barbara at seven P.M., and Hunter and Andress waited anxiously. Hunter’s telephone rang shortly after five P.M.

Mrs. Walker advised that she called John Anthony Walker, Jr., and told him she would not be able to meet him at 7 P.M. this evening as planned. Barbara Walker advised that John Walker was angry because she would not meet him and stated during their conversation, “We’ll hook up before you leave here. It is vital that we talk. There are things that cannot be discussed on the phone.”

The next day, April 11, Barbara telephoned Hunter again.

“I’ve got to meet John,” she said. “Otherwise, he’ll be suspicious. He’s picking me up tonight at seven.”

Hunter and Andress scurried to the now familiar parking lot and picked up Barbara for another meeting.

“You must tell John that you haven’t turned him in,” Hunter told Barbara. “Tell him you lost your nerve. Tell him you just couldn’t do it.”

Barbara agreed and then she stunned the agents.

“I want to wear a wire,” she said. “I want you to fix it so you can listen to what we say.”

“Barbara, what if he pats you down?” Hunter replied.

As part of their investigation, he and Andress had both read local newspaper clippings about John in which he claimed to be an expert at detecting electronic bugs. “What if he has some device in his car that can detect microphones? It’s simply too dangerous.”

“I might be able to get him to talk about his spying though,” Barbara said.

“No way,” said Hunter. “It just wouldn’t be safe.”

John arrived at seven P.M. that night, as promised, and picked up Barbara at Margaret’s apartment. He drove her to a McDonald’s restaurant.

Back at FBI headquarters, Hunter and Andress huddled nervously in Wolfinger’s office and debated whether Barbara Walker could remain calm enough to fool John. In a moment of gallows humor, a fellow agent suggested they begin taking bets. Would Barbara tell John? Or would she keep quiet?

The entourage, which had instinctively gathered around Wolfinger, Hunter, and Andress, began taking an impromptu poll. When it came time for Hunter to announce his bet, his peers became quiet.

“What’s she gonna do, Bob?” someone asked.

“Damn if I know,” he finally said. “I’ll be goddamned if I know!”

Chapter 66

Barbara Walker was scared.

“It was very hard playing the part that I was to play,” she recalled. “I tried to be blase and avoided looking in his eyes.”

John was also nervous.

“Barbara was dearly pissed about the ten grand and that scared me. It was the most money she had ever asked for; most of the time it was for a couple hundred or so, but this was the biggest amount and it was the first time I’d really turned her down. I had to make it dear that Michael was involved but I just didn’t want to come out and say, ‘You stupid cunt, your son is part of the spy ring,’ because I figured she wouldn’t believe me.”

Inside McDonald’s, John pleaded poverty.

“Jesus Barbara, if I had the money, I’d pay you,” he said, “but goddamnit, I don’t have it right now. I really don’t.”

Barbara didn’t believe him.

“Look Barbara,” John said, “there is something you should understand. If I ever get arrested, a lot of people are going to get hurt. A lot of people – not just me.”

“I’m aware of that,” Barbara replied.

“Are you sure?” John said, “Because I don’t think you understand what I am saying to you.”

“Are you telling me that Michael is involved?” Barbara asked, point blank.

“Yes, and no. I’m not saying that,” said John. “You’ll have to ask Michael that. Why don’t you ask him?”

Once again, John had dodged the question. He told me later that he was afraid Barbara wouldn’t believe him if he gave her a direct answer.

That night at McDonald’s, John asked Barbara outright: “Barbara, have you gone to the FBI?”

“No, I haven’t turned you in,” she replied.

“Good, ‘cause you wouldn’t want to see your fifty-year-old husband in prison,” John replied. “I don’t think our kids would like it either.”

On the drive back to Margaret’s apartment, John pulled over to the side of the street.

“I asked Barbara why she was doing this to me,” John recalled. “I said, ‘Barbara, we’ve been divorced for ten fucking years! Why do you keep aggravating me? This is like a sickness. People get divorced all the time in this country. They don’t have to destroy each other. Why can’t you leave me alone?’ And Barbara’s voice changed, and I know Barbara and I know she was being totally honest, maybe for the first time in years, and she said to me, ‘I just want to get back at you!’ That says it all! Her decision to turn me in to the FBI had nothing to do with my spying or fucking America and homemade apple pie. It didn’t have anything to do with Laura or her kid either. I had betrayed our marriage vows. I didn’t love Barbara anymore and she couldn’t stand that. It was destroying her and she was going to take me down with her.”

When Barbara stepped from the car that night, she turned and told John, “Talk to you later.”

But Barbara knew, she told me later, that she wouldn’t. She had done it. She had met with John and not tipped him off, but rather than feeling good about it, she felt sick. She couldn’t get to sleep that night on the couch in Margaret’s apartment.

Barbara Walker gave me this explanation: “You see, I never wanted to hurt John. It is hard to explain but it is like primates, you know, monkeys picking each other off the branches of a tree. This is how the game is played. ‘Do you like me?’ ‘No, I don’t like you!’ ‘Then I knock you off the tree.’

“It took us a long while when we first started dating before John and I could say, ‘I love you!’ The first time I said anything emotional to him, I said, ‘I hate you!’ because he had violated the protection that I had built around myself. Saying ‘I hate you’ is very much like saying ‘I love you.’

“During our talk that night in McDonald’s, John reached out several times and touched me. I didn’t reach out to him, but he touched me. You see, I knew that deep down he really cared. It was just that he was showing it with anger and hostility. It was like we were the monkeys on that tree limb and I was asking him if he cared. When he said ‘No,’ I pushed him off. But it didn’t mean that I hated John or wanted to hurt him. It meant that I was his best friend.

“You see,” Barbara concluded, “I was sick that night because I still love John.”

As far as John was concerned, his meeting that night with Barbara was a success. He returned home and tape-recorded a letter to Michael in which he mentioned his encounter with Barbara and his recent telephone chats with Laura.

Barbara’s visit in Norfolk came to an end the next day, April 12, and Hunter volunteered to drive her to the airport and put her aboard an airplane. By now all of the telephone taps had been put in place, and Wolfinger had drawn up a schedule for each agent to work the round-the-clock wiretap.

“This is the most bizarre case,” Hunter told Wolfinger after returning from the airport, “and it’s getting worse.”

Usually an agent conducts an investigation by interviewing witnesses, collecting evidence, and then arresting a suspect. But the FBI was afraid to interview anyone but Laura and Barbara for fear that John might hear about the investigation, and, so far, there was absolutely no hard evidence that John had committed a crime.

“I don’t know if we can get this guy or not,” Hunter continued. “He’s been doing this for twenty years, Barbara’s warned his brother, we don’t know what the hell Margaret might do, and John’s supposedly an expert on wiretaps and bugs. You’ve got to wonder if he is going to screw up.”

“I don’t know, Bob,” Wolfinger said. “Sometimes you get a case where everything seems to fall together no matter what you do. It’s almost as if it’s inevitable. Fate. It’s like a person’s time has come. It’s time for them to be arrested.

“Maybe John Walker’s time has come,” Wolfinger said.