My Life As a Spy

Following his arrest in 1985, it was revealed that John A. Walker, Jr., a US Navy communications specialist, had been selling military secrets to the Soviet Union since first entering the Soviet Embassy in Washington in 1968 and had also helped organize perhaps "the most damaging Soviet spy ring in history," to quote The New York Times. In this memoir, which apparently began as an explanatory letter to his children and therefore dwells quite a bit on his troubled marriage, he describes his years as a spy, giving three reasons for why he decided to work for the Soviets in the first place: his realization that the Cold War was a farce as the Soviets had neither the will nor the strength to fight the US militarily, his belief that John F. Kennedy's assassination was a coup d'etat by powerful government officials who continue to control the country today, and his disgust at the failure of the government and the Navy to defend the communications ship USS Liberty from attack by the Israelis in 1967. Annotation c2009 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

John A. Walker Jr. (Springfield, MO) is currently serving a life sentence for the crime of espionage at the US Medical Center for Federal Prisoners.