Christians In Action (Central Intelligence Agency or CIA nickname)

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is the successor to World War II’s Office of Strategic Services (OSS). The CIA nickname of “Christians In Action” was probably coined or at least popularized by George Washington Bacon 3rd (1946-1976), who was awarded the CIA’s Intelligence Star.
 
The CIA has also been nicknamed “The Agency,” “Pickle Factory” (since at least 1965), “The Company” (since at least 1972), “Capitalism’s Invisible Army” (by R. Buckminster Fuller in 1981), “Cocaine Importing Agency” (since at least 1988), “Capitalism’s International Army” (since at least 1995), “Virginia Farm Boys” (after its headquarters in Langley, Virginia, as used in the 1996 film Mission: Impossible), “Certified Idiots of America” (since at least 1996), “Clowns In America” (since at least 2010), “Crooks In Action” (since at least 2010) and “Catholic Intelligence Agency” (since at least 2012).
   
   
Wikipedia: Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is a central intelligence agency of the United States government, reporting to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers. The CIA also engages in covert activities at the request of the President of the United States.
 
It is the successor of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) formed during World War II to coordinate espionage activities against the Axis Powers for the branches of the United States Armed Forces. The National Security Act of 1947 established the CIA, affording it “no police or law enforcement functions, either at home or abroad”. One year later, this mandate was expanded to include[clarification needed] “sabotage, anti-sabotage, demolition and evacuation measures…subversion [and] assistance to underground resistance movements, guerrillas and refugee liberation movements, and support of indigenous anti-communist elements in threatened countries of the free world”. Through interagency cooperation, the CIA has Cooperative Security Locations at its disposal. These locations are called “lily pads” by the Air Force.
 
The primary function of the CIA is to collect information about foreign governments, corporations, and individuals, and to advise public policymakers. The agency conducts covert operations and paramilitary actions, and exerts foreign political influence through its Special Activities Division. The CIA and its responsibilities changed markedly in 2004. Before December 2004, the CIA was the main intelligence organization of the US government; it was responsible for coordinating the activities of the US Intelligence Community (IC) as a whole. The Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 created the office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), which took over management and leadership of the IC.
 
Today, the CIA still has a number of functions in common with other countries’ intelligence agencies (see Relationships with foreign intelligence agencies). The CIA’s headquarters is in Langley in McLean, unincorporated Fairfax County, Virginia, a few miles west of Washington, D.C. along the Potomac River.
 
Sometimes, the CIA is referred to euphemistically in government and military parlance as Other Government Agencies (OGA), particularly when its operations in a particular area are an open secret. Other terms include The Company, Langley and The Agency.
 
Soldiers of Fortune—Mercenary Wars       
GEORGE   WASHINGTON BACON 3rd  
Born 04.08.46 in Biddeford Maine USA. He grew up in Longmeadow Massachusetts where he went to the university.
 
In 1966 he joined the Army and became a distinguished soldier before joining the Special Forces.
 
In 1968 and 1969 he went to Vietnam where he ran reconnaissance missions into North Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. He took a bullet in the shoulder and picked up a swag of medals for his bravery. He was an expert in Vietnamese and could speak Chinese. He personally trained the Montagnards (Laotian) tribe’s people at Konbtum for the FOB2. Taking them out on raids himself.
 
On his return to the US he was discharge and went back to college as a teacher. A few months later he was recruited by the CIA (Christians in Action) as George called them. He returned to Laos as an adviser operating on the Plain of Jars, later he received the Intelligence Star the CIA’s second highest award.
(...)
According to a statement signed by Gary Martin Acker while awaiting execution in an Angola prison, George Bacon died at 12pm on 14.02.76 at the town of Gbmb during an ambush on their Land rover.
Terry Aspinall 1990
 
Google Books
Fire Power
By Chris Dempster & Dave Tomkins, with Michel Parry
London: Corgi
1978
Pg. 392:
Bacon had first been recruited by the CIA—‘Christians in Action’, as he jokingly referred to the Agency—while majoring in International Relations at the School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University.
   
Google Books 
Merc:
American soldiers of fortune
By Jay Mallin and Robert K. Brown
New York, NY: Macmillan
1979
Pg. 127:
... said he was going to work for ‘Christians in Action,’ George’s personal code for the CIA.
 
Google Books
Warriors of the Night:
Spies, soldiers, and American intelligence
By Ernest Volkman
New York, NY: Morrow
1985
Pg. 295:
Five years later, Bacon was recruited into the CIA and, under the code name Kayak, went back into Laos to continue the fight, this time on behalf of the agency he often heard called “Christians In Action” by more cynical agents who knew the war was lost.
 
Google Books
Rogue Warrior—SEAL Force Alpha
By Richard Marcinko and John Weisman
New York, NY: Pocket Books
1998
Pg. 80:
Christians In Action (you probably already know that’s what we SEALs call the CIA) knew of, but didn’t bother to warn the Japanese about, the Aum Shinrikyo cult.
 
Google Books
Timeless
By Danny Sparks
New York, NY: iUniverse
2004
Pg. 17:
After the war he joined the “Christians In Action” (CIA) and got or volunteered for all the dirty jobs.
   
Google Books
The Assassin
By Stephen Coonts
New York, NY: St. Martin’s Press
2008
Pg. 65:
My name is Tommy Carmellini— I think I introduced myself before— and I work for the CIA, the Central Intelligence Agency, or, as it’s referred to in some profane quarters, Christians In Action. Not that we are all Christians, because we aren’t, nor is there a lot of action.
     
Google Books
Suka: a Paul Murdock novel
By Michael P. Murphy
Authorhouse
2009
Pg. 24:
“I know the type.” Murdock nodded at the new arrivals. “Clowns In Action,” he said. “May as well have it stamped on their foreheads.”
 
The actual derogatory term for the CIA was Christians In Action, but Murdock thought that his version was far more accurate.
 
Google Books
SEAL Team Six:
Memoirs of an elite Navy SEAL sniper
By Howard E. Wasdin and Stephen Templin
New York, NY: St. Martin’s Press
2011
Pg. XI:
Christians in Action: Nickname for Central Intelligence Agency.