He worked in various departments and ended up as a staff member in the executive office of President Franklin D. Roosevelt where he wrote reports on the various new agencies of the New Deal.

American journalist Ernie Pyle was at one time aboard the USS Windham Bay, and wrote about the importance of jeep carriers in naval battles.

He then became a program analyst and foreign affairs specialist with the U.S. government's Interdepartmental Committee on Scientific and Cultural Cooperation.

[3] In this job, he worked with a little-known program of technical aid and exchange of scientific know-how with South America.

Point Four was the first time in history that a powerful nation – in this case the industrial giant of the world – was committing itself to assist in the building up of other countries, not in order to gain dominion over them or to profit by their exploitation, but as a means of contributing to the establishment of a world order distinguished by personal freedom and social justice.

The idea of using younger people for overseas technical work was suggested in his final report for the Griffin Mission, and furthered by Lloyd Andrews who became head of Point Four.

During the early 1950s, McCarthyism was at its height and Walkinshaw's boss was accused, and then cleared, as one of ten top subversive members of the State Department.

Further, an idea he promoted in Point Four of appropriate technology and small improvements decided upon by the people involved was often being replaced by Marshall Plan types of big industrial projects.

Not long after moving back to Seattle, he met his future wife Jean Strong at a Quaker meeting.

He served on many others boards including Northwest Kidney Centers, Municipal League, United Nations Association and City Club.

His law partner Stimson Bullitt, remembering their long-time friendship, wrote of Walkinshaw, "You are the only person I have known for whom I thought ethical decisions were not hard – that on coming to a moral fork in the road, you would take the right one without breaking stride."