According to Anne Karalekas, a staffer of the Church Committee who wrote a history of the CIA, that was merely a cosmetic change, and it was only on August 1, 1952, that OPC and OSO were properly merged to form the Directorate of Plans (DDP).

[8] After its creation in the Truman administration, the CIA was, initially, the financial manager for OPC and OSO, authorized to handle "unvouchered funds" by National Security Council document 4-A of December 1947, the launching of peacetime covert action operations.

NSC 4-A made the Director of Central Intelligence responsible for psychological warfare, establishing at the same time the principle that covert action was an exclusively Executive Branch function.

Initially, the supervision by committee allowed the OPC to exercise early use of its new covert action mandate dissatisfied officials at the Departments of State and Defense.

NSC 10/2 defined the scope of these operations as: propaganda; economic warfare; preventive direct action, including sabotage, demolition and evacuation measures; subversion against hostile states, including assistance to underground resistance movements, guerrillas and refugee liberations [sic] groups, and support of indigenous anti-Communist elements in threatened countries of the free world.

Concerned about this situation, DCI Walter Bedell Smith in early 1951 asked the NSC for enhanced policy guidance and a ruling on the proper "scope and magnitude" of CIA operations.

Although CIA continued to seek and receive advice on specific projects ... no group or officer outside of the DCI and the President himself had authority to order, approve, manage, or curtail operations.

In accordance with a series of National Security Council directives, the Director of Central Intelligence's responsibility for the conduct of covert operations was further clarified.

[13] The Commission's investigation found that HUMINT capabilities had been severely degraded since the end of the Cold War and were ill-suited for targeting non-state actors such as terrorist organizations.

[17] A technical services unit, sometimes in the clandestine division and occasionally in the Directorate of Science and Technology, contained both espionage equipment development and sometimes questionable research, such as the MKULTRA mind control program.

They are highly skilled in weaponry; covert transport of personnel and material by air, sea, and land; guerrilla warfare; the use of explosives; assassination and sabotage; and escape and evasion techniques.

They are prepared to respond quickly to myriad possible needs, from parachute drops and communications support to assistance with counter-narcotics operations and defector infiltration.

Officers in this career track will directly support and drive complex worldwide NCS operations to develop actionable intelligence against the highest priority threats to U.S. national security.

[24] The NCS' primary action arm is the Special Activities Center, which conducts direct action-like raids, ambushes, sabotage, assassinations, unconventional warfare (e.g. training and leading guerrillas), and deniable psychological operations, the latter also known as "covert influence".

One such statute forbids the use of journalists as agents unless the President makes the written determination to waive this restriction based on the "overriding national security interest of the United States".

[37] The National Security Archive commented, "In 1987, Deputy Director for Science and Technology Evan Hineman established ... a new Office for Special Projects.

Such sensors had been used to monitor Chinese missile tests, Soviet laser activity, military movements, and foreign nuclear programs.

Some of the latter may be considered open source intelligence OSINT and be performed by other agencies, just as reports from diplomats are another form of HUMINT that flows into the State Department.

At times, this function may be assigned to the CIA, because its counter-intelligence staff has biographical indexes that let them check the background of foreign citizens offering information.

[citation needed] Its capabilities had been in decline since the public outcry resulting from the Church Committee's revelations of the DO's highly questionable activities.

Furthermore, the DO fought frequent "turf" battles[clarification needed] amongst the executive branch bureaucracies, most prominently with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Defense and State departments.