Family of Spies

by Pete Earley

Book Overview

very good condition, dust cover slightly worn, initials by inside cover This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0553052837
• ISBN13: 9780553052831
• Release Date: October 1988
• Publisher: Bantam Books
• Length: 385 Pages
• Weight: 1.58 lbs.

Customer Reviews

A well written book

This is a well written book about the Walker spy ring. While information gathered was from many hours of interviews of John Walker and others involved it does not show Walker in any good light as some of these books do. It shows him to be as evil and greedy as he was never thinking about anyone but himself. Overall this books seems to be an accurate account of one of the worst spy rings in the United States.

Walker Exposed

There are four full-length treatments of the Walker spy case> The first, by Jack Kneece is a well-done reporter's job, relying largely on trial transcripts, news clippings, and interviews with peripheral characters. The second, by intelligence expert John Barron, gives us a behind-the-scenes look at how the case was broken by the FBI, and an illuminating assessment of the damage done by the ring's treachery. The third, by Howard Blum, offers interviews with some of the participants, but suffers from a hard-to-read writing style, including the frequent - and excessive - use of the hyphenated aside. <br /> <br />Pete Earley has put it all together in a well-written book that offers all the needed details in a fast-paced narrative, which includes in-depth interviews with all the particpants except Whitworth. Most revealing are the interviews with Walker himself: He is shown to be a self-centered person with some bizarre personality conflicts. In candid and revealing rationalizations, Walker suggests that he was actually helping his family by involving them in espionage, indicates that he was annoyed that the FBI did not accept his suggestion that he become a "double-agent" after his arrest, and theorizes that he, himself, was the victim of some sort of set-up. Walker comes across as detached from reality.

portrait of treachery

"Family of Spies" is an excellent account of the Walker family spy ring, perhaps the most devastating spy ring ever to operate in the USA, certainly within the US Navy. One is constantly amazed in this book by the extent of John Walker, Jr.'s treachery, deceitfulness and total psychpathology. There isn't a person he doesn't try to use, a life he doesn't try to destroy. It also shows the utter incompetence of US military intelligence security. Walker, his son Michael, and his main accomplice, Jerry Whitworth, stole secrets with impunity and never came close to being caught until Walker's ex-wife turned them all in. Michael was working in secure areas with access to all sorts of classified materials and didn't even have a security clearance--no one bothered to check to see if he had one. Walker faked his way through a regular five-year security background check just by forging an "approved" stamp for under $3.00 and stamping his personnel file. The book is well-written and fast-paced. Michael Walker served 15 yrs of a 25 yr sentence and is now free but his father deservedly remains in prison.