On the night of May 19,1985,John Anthon~

Walker, Jr., depnsited documents containing

129 stolen naval secrets wrapped in a plastic

bag at an isolated KGB dead drop near

Pnolesville. Maryland. Then he drove on to

another designated drop point to pick up the

bundle of cash, more than $200,000, that was

to be his payment. There was nothing there.

Disturbed, Walker went back t() retrieve tile

plastic bag. It was gone. He reluctantly

returned to his Rockville motel room,

convinced he had at last been discnvered by

the FBl--but when there was no effort to stop

or arrest him, it seemed likelier that the

Russians had simply screwed up. In his nearly

twenty years of treason, of spying for the

USSR, this had happened twice before.

But this time John Walker was wrong.

When he left his room to hide the maps and

photographs of the drop sites, handgun at the

ready two FBI agents leapt out at hiny. What

The New York Times was to call "the most

damaging espionage operation in American

history" had been disarmed at last.

Pete Earley s gripping hook is shocking in

its revelations. The talc nf master spy John

Walker, Jr., and his ring--his Navy. seaman son,

Michael, who had supplied that night s

documents from his ship, the nuclear aircraft

carrierNimitz; Walker s gullihle hrother,

Arthur; and "Walker s best friend, retired naval

communications specialist Jerry Whitworth

--is dazzling in its detail and especially

appalling in the portrait it paints of the amoral.

egocentric mastermind of the ring.

For two decades John Walker fed secrets

absolutely crucial tn America s national

security to the KGB. Incredibly, for two

decades his treason remained undetected. He

grew, increasingly more sophisticated with

time--far different from the naive Navy watch

officer who, in Decemher 1967, simply

walked into the Soviet Emhassy in Washington

and said, "I want to sell you top secrets." But

his womanizing,his free-spending life-style,

his boat, his plane, his cars, his frequent trips

to Vienna and his discordant family life were

more than enough to generate suspicion.

However, tips from his wife, Barbara, were

repeatedly ignored by the FBI.