And the little pecker-head was scheduled to be released on parole within the year? Gee, so much for prison being a deterrent for selling out your country.
I thought he was a bubblehead. 
Do you really believe that war was prevented by spying?
The Cuban Missile Crisis
Able Archer 83
Operation Broken Reed
How was the Cuban Missile Crises prevented by spying? Would things have been different if we just let them put the missiles there? Seems to me that it was completely exacerbated by spying, that knowing about it meant we had to respond, and if we didn’t know about it, the world would have just gone on as normal
You seriously believe that things wouldn’t have been different if we had nuclear missiles 90 miles from the U.S.? Knowing about the missiles led to them being removed as a threat.
It took us a little while before we knew Japan was going to attack the U.S., and by the time we knew where they were going to attack it was too late. If we had intelligence on where the Japanese fleet was, and where it was going, they could have been intercepted before attacking Pearl Harbor. So there’s an example where not knowing did lead to an attack on U.S. territory.
The idea of ‘what you don’t know can’t hurt you’ seems naïve to me.
Espionage is common and expected; treason much less so. One who betrays his democratic nation to a tyranny is scum.
And as Clarence Darrow is said to have remarked, “I have never wished anyone dead, but I have read some obituaries with a great deal of satisfaction.”
Here’s what I believe: I believe the US had missiles in Turkey and Italy in range of Moscow and did not initiate the destruction of their city. Whatever you may think, simply having weapons does not mean you’re going to use it. Sure, we are the “good guys” in this version of history on account of the kind of rights we have as a nation, but during the Cold War some of that was restricted “for the good of the nation”.
Seeing as how you are from a different generation and have hard time looking through history through someone else’s experience, consider this: Kennedy invites the USSR to place missiles in Cuba within range of Washington. They do so and both countries have missiles pointing to each other’s capital. Do you seriously believe that the USSR would have just said “Fuck it, we got them, so why not use them?” and nuked the US? Or can you consider that just maybe, having missiles doesn’t mean that they’ll be launched, and if the US ignored them, the world would still have turned out ok?
Again, that doesn’t take an exceptional mind to consider because the US had missiles pointing to Moscow and NOTHING HAPPENED! So its conceivable that the same nothing would have happened if they had their missiles pointed at us. Imagine if we took that energy used in spying and defense and put it towards scientific research? We’d be decades ahead of where we are now
Well you may not consider it, but I said I consider spying and intelligence two different things. By all means, gather intel on your enemies massing their troops, but to countries like Canada, England, or France today? Let them keep their secrets, we don’t need them
Don’t misstate my premise.
What I believe is that the capital we expend on spying and espionage could be better used on endeavors with a more domestic benefit. We spend more on defense as part of the federal budget than anything else. If I could divert those billions for just one year towards something like medical research, energy efficiency, etc., I would do it. The lives and money saved from that would, I believe, dwarf the amount we may lose in not knowing where a few terrorists hid their bombs. Millions of Americans die a year from diseases. Except during war, and a big, world one at that, when do military casualties even approach that?
Going back to this guy Walker, can you articulate one life lost because of his betrayal? One tangible benefit the USSR reaped? Not presumed or inferred, but one actual life and one actual benefit? Or is the information lost only valuable for the sake of having it?