Jerry Alfred Whitworth | |
---|---|
Born | [1] | August 10, 1939
Occupation | United States Navy communications specialist |
Criminal status | Incarcerated: United States Penitentiary, Atwater (USP Atwater) |
Motive | Financial gain |
Conviction(s) | Espionage |
Criminal charge | Espionage |
Penalty | 365 years, fined $410,000 |
Jerry Alfred Whitworth (born August 10, 1939) was sentenced to 365 years for his part in the Walker family spy ring,[2] which, at the time of Whitworth's arrest, U.S. authorities described as "the most damaging espionage ring uncovered in the United States in three decades".[3]
Whitworth was born in his grandparents' house next door to the New Covenant Free Will Baptist Church in the Paw Paw Bottoms[3] of the Arkansas River, seven miles south-east of Muldrow,[4] Oklahoma.
Whitworth came from a broken home. His father left his mother and moved to California before he was one year old. His mother had died shortly afterwards, so his maternal grandparents and one uncle were awarded guardianship. The family breakup had hit the young Whitworth hard, and he had trouble making friends in school. At the time of his arrest, a now-retired educator who had been one of Whitworth's teachers in elementary school noted he "seemed to struggle to find a place to belong".[3]
Whitworth agreed to help John Walker in getting highly classified communications data in 1973; from then until his retirement in 1983, his work for the navy involved encrypted communications and required security clearance. At first, Walker told Whitworth that the information was going to Israel, which made espionage sound more palatable with an ally. However, after learning the recipient was the Soviet Union, their relationship became strained. Whitworth continued to provide the material, but felt Walker was being duped in only getting several thousand dollars a month for information that would have cost the USSR tens of millions of dollars to obtain had they used technical penetration, i.e. "bugs".
Whitworth married for the first time in 1967 but his wife left him within a year. She committed suicide in 1974 but he did not learn this until around 1980. He married a second time in 1976, to a woman 15 years his junior, and was still married to her at the time of his arrest.[citation needed]
Less than six months after he retired from the Navy, Whitworth seemed to try to get out of espionage. In early May 1984, he wrote to the FBI in San Francisco, using the pseudonym "Rus". He said that he had been spying for several years, passing secret cryptographic lists for military communications. He said that there were at least three other people in his spy ring and offered to cooperate with the authorities provided he received immunity. He wrote again in late May 1984, again asking for immunity and saying that the spy ring had been operating for more than 20 years. He seems to have changed his mind during that summer—his final letter, dated mid-August 1984, said that he thought "it would be best to give up on the idea of aiding in the termination of the espionage ring previously discussed".[3]
Whitworth's retirement was formalized by the Navy on October 31, 1983. He then attended school to become a stockbroker, and had taken his stockbroker's exam in 1985. Shortly afterwards, Whitworth was arrested. While imprisoned, he was informed via mail that he was not to be awarded his stockbroker's license due to failure of the exam.
John Walker's former wife reported his spying to the FBI,[6] in revenge for his failure to pay alimony. Shortly after Walker was arrested on 20 May 1985, Walker's son, Michael, and Walker's brother, Arthur, were arrested. Barbara Walker had never met Jerry Whitworth, and his role in the spy ring was tougher to uncover. Through Whitworth's 1984 letters to the FBI, John Walker's poorly-coded letters to the KGB which identified him as "D", and Barbara Walker remembering her ex-husband often mentioning a friend (though she could not recollect if his true name was "Wentworth" or "Whitworth"), the FBI was finally able to pinpoint Jerry Whitworth, and he was arrested on 3 June 1985. Walker entered into a plea bargain, agreeing to testify against Whitworth, apparently mainly in return for lenient treatment of his son. But Walker also received more lenient treatment than the man he had recruited—Walker would have been eligible for parole in May 2015 (he died on August 29, 2014, in prison). Whitworth ended up receiving the harshest punishment of the spy quartet, being fined $410,000 and sentenced to 365 years imprisonment.[7]
Whitworth is currently incarcerated at USP Atwater.[8]