Lee Pennington

Lee R. Pennington Jr. was "a former FBI inspector" and "an old family friend of the McCords." The Central Intelligence Agency's own account describes him as "for a number of years an informant of CIA's Office of Security. Being involved in work for the American Legion in the field of security he did research on the subject for CIA." Paul Gaynor, head of the Security Research Staff of the Office of Security, retained him by the month until December 1972.¹²³

June 1972

Shortly after James McCord was arrested at the Watergate, Pennington visited the McCord house, "where he found Mrs. McCord, with her daughter and son-in-law, destroying papers." He reported it. In August 1972 the FBI's Alexandria office asked the Office of Security about a "Pennington" who might have been McCord's supervisor. The agency answered with "the name of another Pennington, an employee of the CIA Office of Security, but who had never been a supervisor of McCord." The Senate minority staff found the purpose was "to withhold the name of Lee R. Pennington." In November and December 1972 he passed his case officer a memorandum by McCord about Jack Anderson.¹³

The published minority report of the Senate committee gives the retainer as "$250 per month until December of 1973" and states: "The Agency has advised that the Security Research Staff was abolished in August of 1973."⁴

1974

In January 1974, when the agency's inspector general was to review the Watergate files, Howard Osborn "ordered that the Pennington materials be removed." An employee of the Personnel Security Division copied them to his safe and told the inspector general. Osborn's memorandum of February 22, 1974, went to the Senate committee, the oversight committees, and the special prosecutor. Pennington testified in executive session on February 23 "that he did not go to the McCord home for the purpose of searching for or destroying CIA-related documents, but does acknowledge witnessing the destruction of documents." The testimony of others, the staff wrote, indicated "more active participation." Osborn retired on February 26. "The Security Research Staff has now been abolished." The staff noted that Pennington "may have been a 'domestic agent,' possibly in violation of the CIA's charter," and that his agency file "apparently has portions missing from it." The file itself went only to the House subcommittee of Lucien Nedzi, with "gaps" the agency acknowledged. Nedzi concluded that the agency had not sent him to burn the papers. McCord wrote that Pennington, then 60, "came over to bring food to my family" and destroyed nothing.¹²⁵