ABSTRACT
The Church Committee felt that paramilitary activities "are an anomaly, if not an aberration, of covert action." It saw the activity as costly, controversial, and "difficult, if not impossible, to conceal." The Church Committee also expressed the belief that paramilitary activity carries with it the possibility of escalating into major military commitments. Central Intelligence Agency two best-known large paramilitary involvements are the Bay of Pigs invasion, and the Agency's operations in the Laotian theater of the Indo-China War. Programs to counter armed, communist-dominated insurrections came to be known during the Kennedy administration as counterinsurgency. The Reagan Administration, viewing Nicaraguan support for the terrorist insurgency in El Salvador, decided to add to its program support for the various exile groups known as the "Contras," organized to oppose the Nicaraguan regime. Working through indigenous elements—as is usual in counterinsurgency programs–teams of specially trained personnel undertake missions for the express purpose of taking captives.
