What I mean by that is a program to turn out world class warriors like the SEALs, for example. It’s a common enough movie trope, a CIA agent or former agent has uncommon fighting skills. Example:
And there are plenty more.
I ask because you hear of the Green Beret training schools, the SEAL training, Ranger, BUDs, etc. But I’ve never heard of a program to train CIA agents to become an equivalent fighting machine.
Is there such a program or is it the stuff of action movies.
The CIA has a lot of former military in it. It wouldn’t surprise me if a few agents were former Green Berets, Navy SEALS, Delta Force or something like that.
Having said that, the CIA is an intelligence agency, and they’re mainly trained in human intelligence, not assassinations. This means talking (tricking, blackmailing, bribing, seducing etc) people into giving up secrets, interpreting for interrogations of captured terrorists, and the like. During the war in Afghanistan, the CIA supposedly made warlords an offer they can’t refuse: team up and get cash, don’t turn up and run the risk of bombs. (The warlords would then call bomb strikes on their rivals.)
The ability to kick someone’s ass isn’t that important to the job. I suspect any CIA agent who goes into the field gets at least some combat training. It’s a dangerous job, so escape & evasion training, distraction techniques, and maybe some combat training could very well be standard. Don’t expect a blackmailer to kick ass like a special forces veteran unless they used to be a special forces veteran.
I think Hollywood plays a role, and many thrillers. The CIA works with the military. I don’t think you’re going to have teams of CIA agents kidnapping, rendering and interrogating terrorists the way they do in many movies and novels. The military would do the first part, and would probably keep custody of the prisoner… but the CIA would provide interpretation, support, and a giant intelligence database the interrogators would find useful.
The CIA has a training program for all its analysts. It is not exactly a kick-ass program but it does expose trainees to facing their fears. A friend was in the CIA for several years. She had to do quite a few things in training that scared the hell out of her, then spent all her years at a desk in Washington.
(Except, sometimes she lets out that she was actually someplace else. Vietnam, Thailand. Whoops!)
But the people with the real kick-ass training join the CIA that way, or are recruited that way.
The CIA has a small paramilitary force known as the Special Operations Group, within the equally-clearly-named Special Activities Division.
From the Wikipedia page
Whatever special training these people receive in addition to what they’ve already learned in the military is not publicly known.
Years ago someone in the military told me about a military unit in the cia called the Virginia Boys. He made it sound like they were an elite deep cover group.
I have no idea, I assume they were SOG-SAD soldiers as was mentioned. But he implied they were more like deep cover operatives, not a military unit. If so, and they had to blend into civilian areas I’m sure they had extensive hand to hand combat, but I’m sure weapons are vastly preferred to fist fighting even if you are blending in as a civilian. You can end a fight quick with mace, brass knuckles, a knife, a collapseable baton, etc. Long, drawn out fistfights aren’t helpful, they are just entertaining to watch.
However if you are military, hand to hand combat is a last resort. If your air cover, rifles, grenades, pistol, knife, etc have all been taken then you have hand to hand combat. But you need to lose every weapon that you have before then.
I doubt this. An analyst’s job is completely different from a field agent’s job, and there’s no reason one would be trained for the other. The worst fear that an analyst would need to confront would be the fear of their inbox exceeding their outbox. And anyone who would be deployed to the field would never “let out” something that wasn’t public knowledge.
Ahh, this has lead to companies naming their knives or whatever SOG. Who would have thought hat you could get knives from the world’s most secret fighting unit at Target for 16 bucks?
Dennis
Now I’m stuck with a mental image of the SOG leader going through a leather-bound portfolio, picking out headshots of operatives, including a master of disguise and at least one beautiful woman.
Let’s not forget the 800 lumen flashlights that let everyone for miles around know where you’re hiding?
The CIA has a Directorate of Operations which handles clandestine CIA ops Directorate of Operations (CIA) - Wikipedia . If there are any James Bond/Jason Bourne/Jack Bauer types in the CIA, they’re there. It includes paramilitary operations officers, targeting officers (I’m not sure how literal the term “targeting” is).
Within that Directorate is the Special Activities Division ( Special Activities Center - Wikipedia ) which conducts paramilitary actions.
With regard to “badass training” types, see especially: Directorate of Operations (CIA) - Wikipedia
Special Activities Center - Wikipedia
One can also expect the CIA to be able to borrow personnel from DEVGRU/Delta Force. I also would expect that many former special forces members would join the CIA as they get older. If someone got DEVGRU/Delta training, they will benefit from CIA-specific training but they hardly need to be trained further in “badass” skills.
An example of such people is this CIA officer who died in Afghanistan in 2001 Johnny Micheal Spann - Wikipedia
Did she mention what those things were?
SOG-SAD sounds like the villain in a children’s cereal commercial.
I think what the OP means is… where’s the class that teaches you 50 ways to kill a man with a pencil?
You can probably kill that man those same 50 ways whether or not he has the pencil.
Except for #38, which is subtly blowing black pepper at him while he’s looking at the nib of the pencil which causes him to sneeze and accidentally impale himself through the eye.
As I recall, for many CIA missions that need badasses they farm it out to one of the special forces units. Everything I have ever read has indicated the CIA is far less James Bond and far more detailed analysis.
How secretive could they possibly be if there’s a Wikipedia article about them?
What if said analyst needs to have a Jack Ryan moment? YOU CAN’T LEAVE THEM TOTALLY UNPREPARED!!!
I believe there was some kind of ropes course and something that triggered claustrophobia. Safety measures apparently were in place, because after all these were people with desk jobs. (Most of the time? Allegedly?)
On the analyst-vs.-field-agent thing above, she said when she was there, everybody who wasn’t some kind of boss was an analyst. By job description. IOW there were no “field agents.” Just “analysts.” Somebody somewhere must have known the difference.
The entrance test requires solving a word search puzzle, followed by a query on governmental acronyms.
I said the content of their training is secret, not their existence. Wikipedia has articles on all kinds of organizations that have secrets up the wazoo. You also won’t find them bragging about their missions very much, I bet.
They don’t brag even when dead. The Memorial Wall at the CIA has 125 stars carved into it honoring those who gave their lives in service. Of those 125, only 88 have names associated with them, the rest anonymous even after death.