Continuing with The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence By Victor Marchetti and John D. Marks

You have to make up your mind that you are going to have an intelligence agency and protect it as such, and shut your eyes some and take what is coming.
-SENATOR JOHN STENNIS
Chairman, Joint Senate
Committee for CIA Oversight
November 23, 1971

COVERT action—intervention in the internal affairs of other nations—is the most controversial of the CIA's clandestine functions. It is the invariable means to the most variable ends. It is basic to the clandestine mentality. And the crudest, most direct form of covert action is called "special operations."

These activities, mostly of a paramilitary or warlike nature, have little of the sophistication and subtlety of political action (penetration and manipulation) or propaganda and disinformation. Although planned by the CIA's professionals, these operations are to a large extent carried out by agency contract employees and mercenaries—both American and foreign.

Within the CIA's Clandestine Services, "special ops" have always been viewed with mixed emotions. Most of the professionals, especially in recent years, have looked down on such activities, even while at times recommending their use. It is widely recognized within the agency, however, that less direct forms of covert action have their limitations, especially when timely, conclusive action is thought necessary to put down a troublesome rebel movement or to overthrow an unfriendly government. In these cases, the CIA usually calls on its own "armed forces," the Special Operations Division (SOD), to do the job.

By definition, special ops are violent and brutal; most clandestine operators prefer more refined techniques. The CIA professional is a flimflam artist, involved in the creative challenge of plotting and orchestrating a clandestine campaign without resorting to violence. In such non-paramilitary covert action, the operator tends to keep his hands unbloodied, and his crimes are of the white-collar variety—conspiracy, bribery, corruption. His failure or exposure is normally punished only with expulsion from the country where he is operating. He is, in the end, merely engaging in a "gentleman's" game. The paramilitary operator, on the contrary, is a gangster who deals in force, in terror, in violence. Failure can mean death—if not to the operator himself, then to the agents he has recruited. The SOD man wages war, albeit on a small and secret level, but none of the rules of warfare apply. His is a breed apart; in the CIA, special ops types are sometimes referred to as the "animals" of the agency.

https://exploringrealhistory.blogspot.com/2020/03/part-3-cia-cult-of-intelligencespecial.html