Justice for the Principal Agent

By GEORGE J. CHURCH

"Were the death penalty applicable," said U.S. Attorney Joseph Russoniello in a memorandum to San Francisco federal district court, "the Government would undoubtedly be seeking the death penalty in this case." Since federal law does not provide capital punishment for peacetime espionage, Judge John Vukasin chose the closest thing: he sentenced Jerry Whitworth, a member of the Walker family espionage ring, to 365 years in prison. Whitworth will not be eligible for parole for 60 years, when he would be 107. "Jerry Whitworth," said Vukasin, "is a zero at the bone," a man who had betrayed his country for money because "he believes in nothing." Whitworth said only, "I'm very, very sorry."

The former Navy radioman had much reason for remorse. At last week's sentencing hearing, prosecutors made public two affidavits containing new details of what the Soviet Union got for the $332,000 apiece that it paid Whitworth and his former Navy cohort, Spymaster John Walker, from 1975 to 1985. One affidavit was based on the debriefing of Vitaly Yurchenko, the KGB officer who defected to the U.S. and then returned to the Soviet Union last year. Yurchenko, according to the affidavit, learned from his superiors "that the KGB regarded the Walker-Whitworth operation to be the most important . . . in the KGB's history." The Kremlin apparently agreed: one KGB officer was decorated as a Hero of the Soviet Union, and two others received the Order of the Red Banner. The secrets learned from Whitworth and the Walkers, the affidavit quoted Yurchenko as saying, "enabled the KGB to decipher over 1 million (U.S. Navy) messages."

In the second affidavit, Rear Admiral William Studeman, director of Naval Intelligence, outlined the "potential . . . war-winning implications for the Soviet side." Among other things, he said, decoding messages enabled the Soviets to figure out the location and routes of Navy vessels. For example, they may have learned the "operations order for Fleet Exercise 83-1, a unique exercise conducted near the Soviet coast by three carrier battle groups" in 1983, as well as the "communications plan for all U.S. naval forces in the Indian Ocean."

Further, said Studeman, "Whitworth compromised detailed plans for primary, secondary and emergency communications circuits, which are used by the National Command Authority (meaning President Reagan) to maintain contact with operational units." Worst of all, wrote the admiral, the damage will continue long after codes and communications plans are changed because the Soviets gauged the "true capabilities and vulnerabilities of the U.S. Navy (and) identified the specific steps which could achieve the largest gains" in enabling their fleet to fight more effectively. In recent years, said Studeman, "we have seen clear signals of dramatic Soviet gains in all naval warfare areas, which must now be interpreted in light of the Walker-Whitworth espionage conspiracy." There is a lingering fear, too, not mentioned in the court papers, that Whitworth or Walker may have installed in Navy communications what is known as a "trapdoor," a secret program that the Soviets could trigger to paralyze the system in a crisis.

Whitworth's sentence (he was fined $410,000) apparently will be the harshest meted out to any member of the spy ring. John Walker's brother Arthur, a former Navy lieutenant commander, has been sentenced to three life terms (parole eligibility: ten years). John and his son Michael are to be sentenced soon. Under terms of a plea bargain that they struck in return for providing information, John is due to get life (parole eligibility: ten years), and Michael 25 years (parole eligibility: eight years and four months). The Government justified the severity of Whitworth's punishment by contending that he was the "principal agent of collection" for the secrets relayed to the KGB.

With reporting by Bruce van Voorst/Washington