Most turncoats are alcoholics. John Anthony Walker, like Robert Hanssen (see the movie “Breach”), was likely no exception.
John Anthony Walker, Soviet spy, dead in federal prison at age 77 of causes related to diabetes and throat cancer. Walker specialized in communications during his time as a United States Navy Chief Warrant Officer; this expertise allowed him to create a spy ring that deciphered more than one million encrypted American messages, likely resulting in more damage to the U.S. military than any spy ring in history. Even more shocking was that close family and a friend made up the spy ring: his son Michael, his older brother Arthur and best friend, Jerry Whitworth. This spying allowed the Soviets to track every U.S. submarine 24/7, which then U. S. Secretary of the Navy, John Lehman, admitted would have resulted in huge losses of American lives in the event of war.
At age 17, Walker was arrested on charges of burglary. The court offered him a choice between jail and the military, and he chose the latter. Thirteen years later, in 1968, he became distraught over financial difficulties and walked into the Soviet Embassy in Washington, D.C. with classified Navy communications documents. He negotiated payments and a weekly salary for spying. North Korean forces seized the USS Pueblo one month later, likely at the behest of the Soviets, who wanted to study equipment described in the documents (although there is some debate over whether the seizure was coincidental, I would suggest such events rarely simply coincide).
The U.S. government missed a number of opportunities to identify Walker as a spy. Sailors working alongside Walker weren’t suspicious of his swanky apartment, sports car and sail boat because they figured he was moonlighting as a pimp. “Traitor” never entered their minds. Walker and his wife Barbara divorced in 1976. By 1980, she had become an obvious drunk and didn’t want her son to become involved in what she finally realized was a spy ring. She tried several times to contact the Boston office of the FBI, but either hung up or was too drunk to speak. In 1984, she drunkenly confessed that Walker was a spy for the Soviet Union. The FBI figured she was simply a drunk, bitter woman and turned the report over to the Navy Investigative Service (now known as NCIS, Naval Criminal Investigative Service). When the NIS began asking how Walker could afford luxury vehicles and three residences, they broke the case wide open.
While we can’t be as certain of Walker’s addiction as we can in the case of Robert Hanssen (see the movie review of “Breach” in issue # 31 of TAR), there is plenty of evidence for his affliction:
He was a spy. In his magnificent The Secret History of Alcoholism, James Graham devoted an entire chapter to spies and other heroes, as well as traitors and other anti-heroes, many of whom have been addicts.
Walker’s actions demonstrate his mindset as invincible and God-like, which are signal symptoms of alcoholism. Anyone without that mindset simply wouldn’t be able to take the risks required to sell secrets to the enemy.
He mocked the armed services; when asked how he had managed to access so much classified information, he responded, “Kmart has better security than the Navy.”
He was a great liar. He lied not only to his employer, but also family and friends, including his best friend, Whitworth, telling him the stolen data would be used to help America’s ally, Israel.
His marriage to Barbara was marked by physical abuse. The fact that his spouse was an alcoholic could explain this, but long-term physical abuse in such cases would be highly unusual. It’s much more likely that he was also an alcoholic, albeit a far more high-functioning one than his wife. Walker inflated his ego by wielding power over a superpower, the United States, thereby staving off late-stage addiction.
He verbally abused his three daughters and urged one to abort his unborn grandson so she could enlist and spy for him. Verbal abuse goes hand-in-hand with alcoholism.
While his wife cheated with Walker’s older brother, he cheated with women half his age. Serial Don Juan-ism is common among alcoholics, especially with much younger women.
His excuse in grooming son Michael to take over the “family business” was that Michael was too inept to succeed at anything without fatherly help. Belittling is another classic behavioral indication of addiction.
The last seven of these are classic behavioral clues to addiction, elucidated in How to Spot Hidden Alcoholics.
In opposition to the hypothesis that addiction explained his behaviors, Walker never got sober in prison. His self-serving autobiography claimed, among other delusions, that giving secrets to the Soviets helped to end the Cold War by convincing the Kremlin that it could never match our military superiority, causing them to simply give up. Since sobriety requires both abstinence and ego-deflation, it’s possible he never got truly sober. Many convicts, even those who stop drinking and using, never deflate the ego.
Note to family, friends and fans of the above: the benefit of the doubt is given by assuming alcoholism (they are either idiots and fundamentally rotten, or they are alcoholic/other drug addicts—which would explain the misbehaviors). If alcoholic, there is zero chance that behaviors, in the long run, will improve without sobriety. An essential prerequisite to sobriety is the cessation of enabling, allowing pain and crises to build. Thus far, many have done everything they can to protect the addict from the requisite pain, making these news events possible. The cure for alcoholism, consequential bad behaviors and, ultimately, tragedy, is simple: stop protecting the addict from the logical consequences of misbehaviors and, where possible, proactively intervene.