I Pledge Allegiance

by Howard Blum

s/t: The True Story of the Walkers: An American Spy Family
Here is an espionage story that is shocking because it's the true account of John Anthony Walker, a Navy Communications expert, who recruited his son, his wife, his brother & his best friend to form the most damaging spy ring in American history. It was also presented as a 5-hour TV mini-series on CBS.
A Note to the Reader
The Walker Family & Their Friends
Prologue: Dancing in the Dark
Games
Cooperation
Network
Rus
Windflyer
Celebrity
Epilogue: Hope You're Not a Spy/Gee, You've Got Nice Thighs
A Note on Sources
Picture Credits
About the Author

Genres: Espionage

439 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1987

About the author

Howard Blum is the author of New York Times bestsellers including Dark Invasion, the Edgar Award–winner American Lightning, as well as Wanted!, The Gold Exodus, Gangland, and The Floor of Heaven. Blum is a contributing editor at Vanity Fair. While at the New York Times, he was twice nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting. He is the father of three children, and lives in Connecticut.

Get in touch!
Website: www.HowardBlum.com
Email: Howard@HowardBlum.com
Facebook: Like Howard Blum on Facebook
Twitter: @HowardBlum and @FloorOfHeaven

Reviews

[Erik Graff · Rating 3 out of 5]

The mainstream press, both newspapers and magazines, is so dumbed down and manipulated that I get most of my news years after the event by reading books on the subject. Thus, in recent days I've gotten on top of the Nugan Hand banking scandal by reading Kwitny's Crimes of Patriots and, now, of the Walker family spy ring by reading Blum's Pledge.

Harold Blum is an investigative journalist first met by reading his Out There, an account of UFOs and our government. I then proceeded to his Pulitzer winning book on Project Paperclip, about Nazi war criminals in league with our government, and his The Gold of Exodus, about secret A-bomb development in the Middle East. All four of the books by him have been page-turners.

The Walker book is difficult to classify as it is really the biography of a family which starts with John Walker's grandparents and travels up to the fifth generation of his grandchildren. They are, despite four members' treasons, a familar lot: hardscrabble losers from middle America for whom military careers represent salvation.

John Anthony Walker himself, the mastermind, a member of the John Birch Society and the National Rifle Association, a one-time mole for the FBI and possibly the most effective spy ever run by the KGB, is an interesting case. The Soviets pegged him as a typical capitalist. His motivation was money, not ideology, as he sold our naval defense secrets to them throughout his military career and, then, after his retirement, continued selling secrets into the beginning of his son's. Otherwise, he was a normal citizen, beyond suspicion until estranged members of his family turned him in. Of course, they had known and done nothing for many years. Once again, the motives were not ideological and the whole family came together in the end, after three of them were in jail, to cash in on selling the rights to their story.

The most intriguing aspect of this tale is its connection to flight 707, the passenger airliner shot down by the Soviets over Kamchatka. Walker's report of prior naval air provocations may have been responsible for that, making him an accessory to murder as well as a spy.

The primary unforgiveable deficit of the book is its lack of an index. Fortunately, other books are available on the subject which concentrate more on the actual spying, less on the characters of the spies.

[Deb · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellently written, true story of the most egregious, avaricious, vile, piece of garbage, that was Johnnie Walker and his "recruited" band of scumbag traitors.

The only saving grace for this scumbag is that he died in prison one year before he was eligible for parole, that's right parole.... unbelievable.

His older brother Art died in prison, and his son Mike served 15 years in prison and was released in 2000. His "best friend" Jerry Whitworth remains in prison.

I learned this from a google search as this book was written in 1987.

[Tina · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an interesting read. There were times it made my blood boil and I wanted to smack some common sense into a few of the characters. I think what irritated me the most was how manipulative Johnny was (I knew someone like him) and how many different "faces" he had, yet seemed to keep it all together for the most part. I don't normally read books like this, but I'm glad I did. I definitely learned a few good things from this story.

[Mazen · Rating 3 out of 5]

14/4/2007

[Marti Martinson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was hoping for much more trial material, but it was fascinating. Thorough, but not boring. Oh, and to see the term "squid bar" after my 6 years of naval service ended in 1988: priceless.

[TCPils · Rating 5 out of 5]

An outstanding account of the infamous Walker family. Led by Naval officer John Walker (not to be confused with "American Taliban" John Walker) his brother and son joined him in his treasonous endeavours supplying top secret information to the Soviet Union during the cold war and Viet Nam. Truth is indeed stranger than fiction.