Clandestine HUMINT and Covert
Action
National governments deal in both intelli-
gence and military special operations func-
tions that either should be completely secret
(i.e., clandestine: the existence of which is
not known outside the relevant government
circles), or simply cannot be linked to the
sponsor (i.e., covert: it is known that sabot-
age is taking place, but its sponsor is un-
known). It is a continuing and unsolved ques-
tion for governments whether clandestine in-
telligence collection and covert action should
be under the same agency. The arguments
for doing so include having centralized func-
tions for monitoring covert action and
clandestine HUMINT and making sure they
do not conflict, as well as avoiding duplica-
tion in common services such as cover iden-
tity support, counterespionage, and secret
communications. The arguments against do-
ing so suggest that the management of the
two activities takes a quite different mindset
and skills, in part because clandestine collec-
tion almost always is on a slower timeline
than covert action.
Historical background
During the Second World War, the United
States Office of Strategic Services (OSS; the
predecessor
to
the Central
Intelligence
Agency and part of United States Army Spe-
cial Forces) worked closely with the British
Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), Special
Operations Executive (SOE), and Political
Warfare Executive (PWE). The latter two or-
ganizations were wartime, and their func-
tions were merged back into SIS after the
war.
The U.S. has generally followed the British
model of a single civilian agency with close
cooperation with military intelligence and
military special operations
forces. Many
countries follow this model, but there are of-
ten calls to reorganize it, splitting off various
functions into independent agencies. Histor-
ically, since the British clandestine intelli-
gence, in recognizable form, goes back to the
First World War, and their Second World War
covert operations organization preceded U.S.
entry into the war, it mak