Special Activities Center
division in the United States Central Intelligence Agency
The Special Activities Center (SAC) is the center of the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) responsible for covert operations. The clandestine specialized unit was named Special Activities Division (SAD) prior to a 2015 reorganization. Within SAC there are at least two separate groups: SAC/SOG (Special Operations Group) branch for tactical paramilitary operations and SAC/PAG (Political Action Group) branch for covert political action.
The Special Operations Group is responsible for operations that include clandestine or covert operations with which the US government does not want to be overtly associated. As such, unit members, called Paramilitary Operations Officers and Specialized Skills Officers, do not typically wear uniforms.
If they are compromised during a mission, the US government may deny all knowledge. The group generally recruits personnel from special mission units within the U.S. special operations community.
SOG Paramilitary Operations Officers account for a majority of Distinguished Intelligence Cross and Intelligence Star recipients during conflicts or incidents that elicited CIA involvement. These are the highest two awards for valor within the CIA in recognition of distinguished valor and excellence in the line of duty. SOG operatives also account for the majority of the stars displayed on the Memorial Wall at CIA headquarters, indicating that the officer died while on active duty.
“Special Activities Center” enters the record as division in the United States Central Intelligence Agency. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Special, Activities and Center can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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This entry incorporates text from “Special Activities Center” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.