MARTHA AND THE SPOOKS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000504160050-4
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 9, 2012
• Sequence Number: 50
• Publication Date: September 17, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/02/09: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504160050-4
RESTON TIMES
17 September 1986
Martha and the spooks
By CARLOS MONCADA
TMAES STAFF WRITER
' The CIA, which has been accused
of getting into everything, is in Mar-
tha Pennino's hair.
And she's been scratching her
head trying to figure out why.
The Centreville supervisor has
been drawn into a cloak-and-dagger
drama involving mysterious federal
government representatives, obscure
plans for intelligence-gathering oper-
ations in Reston, and unusual security
proposals that have left her baffled.
It all began four months ago,
when she received a letter at her
Vienna home requesting that a meet-
ing be set up at her office to discuss,
as she now recalls, "the location of a
super secret something or other."
The meeting never happened.
"They wanted me to sign a form
saying that I would not discuss (what was
said in the meeting)," Pennino recalled.
"I said, 'I'm sorry, if it's that super
secret, I'd just as soon not sign this."'
But it didn't end there.
Recently she was briefed by two
federal representatives, who identified
themselves only as "Mr. Brown" and
"Mr. Adams," about government plans to
set up an operation near Reston's planned
Town Center.
After she was toll about plans to
erect a security fence around the
proposed office complex, located on
Sunset Hills Road, Pennino bristled.
"I said, 'Wait a minute, this isn't in
keeping with the concept of what we've
got going in Reston,"' Pennino said. "We
think of ourselves as an open
community."
During the talks she pressed for
answers on why a group that is proposing
tight security would plan to set up shop
adjacent to an area that is expected to
become a bustling downtown core.
"I asked them, `Why don't you move
this operation down by the river near
McLean, where you've got lots of space,'
" said Pennino, alluding to the CIA's
Langley headquarters.
The response, Pennino said, was
"Oh, we're overcrowded down there."
In conceding that their Langley
headquarters was cramped for space,
Pennino said, the representatives
unwittingly confirmed that a CIA
operation was involved.
"I feel pretty certain now that it is
CIA," she said.
She quoted the representatives as
saying at one point that the office
complex "has internal features that are
good for our operation.
"If that's the case, then it must have
been built for them," Pennino said. "Why
would an independent developer putting
up a speculative building put in features
that would be good for this operation?"
Pennino said she offered to come up
with more secluded sites in Reston for
the operation. But she said that the
representatives appeared determined to
locate near the Town Center.
"I get a feeling that the federal
government may have a lot more power
than all of us put together and they're
going to do what they want to do,"
Pennino said.
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/02/09: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504160050-4