I just realized that in the episode Deathlock Karen tells MacGyver that Pete is a Colonel. We also hear references to Pete being in the Vietnam war in The Human Factor episode, which points to the fact that the DXS must be a military intelligence agency like the CIA.

I know we've discussed this in other topics and even pointed to the possibility that the DXS could be a sub-department within the CIA, but I don't know that we've ever actually pinned these facts together as proof that the DXS was in fact a Military operation.

What are your views?

I don't think DXS is military. I assumed Pete was recruited by the DXS after he retired from the army (airforce?). People can still call him colonel. I know an ex-general who still is called 'general' by his friends and ex-colleagues. Like a pet name.

And I just can't imagine Mac leaving one military organization to join another.

Yeah but Karen specifically says "He's a Colonel" when MacGyver asks "hows the general?" That conversation seems to highlight that Pete must be an active Colonel.

Actually I need to correct myself here too. The CIA isn't military, it's civilian. SO that may put another angle on exactly how the DXS fits into the intelligence community. Maybe it was the militaries own intelligence agency, or though I have to say the things we saw and hear about the DXS in the show does seem to fit more with the CIA's Special Activities Division which is specifically responsible for covert operations, black operations and other "special activities".

And another thing: at the start of Target MacGyver, Mac, after having blown up a nuclear plant, comes home to find a man there who tells him there's a hit man after him. Mac calls his visitor 'colonel'. This could mean this colonel is with the DXS, or someone from a military organization that has hired Mac as a DXS operative.

I think it's some sort of secret intelligence agency like CIA.
I don't remember in which episode it's being said but Pete is trying to make a point to Mac about someone, saying: ".... (name) ex-KGB!!"
To which Mac answers: "Pete Thornton, EX-DXS!"

So here's some reference being made to KGB, which was (or is?) the CIA of the USSR.

Good point, Sheepy!
Wasn't it in Lost Love part 1?

how does that relate back to Pete being a Colonel in the DXS?

Oh, my, you're right. I got carried away by the colonel thing.
I still think Sheepy has got a good point in proving the DXS not being military, though.

So maybe what it comes down to is continuity in the scriptwriting, or lack of. The writers make Pete a colonel, and later on forget that the DXS is supposed to be military, like Sheepy pointed out. Just like they have written two different versions of how Mac and Pete met for the first time. First in Deathlock the camel story, later on in Partners the version with the taxi.

In the Early Days, Mac worked for a lot of fellows wearing uniforms--mostly Air Force, like Hawkins from 'Golden Triangle', and Colonel 'Barney' (no uniform) from Target MacGyver, not to mention the Pentagon at the beginning of the Pilot Ep, followed by good ol' Ganter of the State Department, where the rescue mission was organized by the military.

A government agency who hires military personel as well as civilian agents, who works internationally, sometimes covertly, fighting crime and protecting the American public--The Department of External Services.

In Season Two, we make the move to the Phoenix Foundation, and the banter between Thornton and his ol' Army Buddy in 'The Human Factor' seemed to suggest to me that Pete had left the DXS because he couldn't stomach the 'military mindset' that uses language like 'standard operation procedure' and 'acceptable losses'.

DXS might not have been a completely military operation, but it had strong miliary support.

I do believe DXS was part of a military.

Okay I'll chime in here. I am a huge Burn Notice fan and in it, he has to deal with some guys from the CSS coming after him. For anyone who doesn't know the NSA (National Security Agency) is a huge communications intelligence agency that is arguably even more shadowy than the CIA but it's "civilian" just like the CIA. However, I looked up the CSS to see what that was because the show featured some guys in it, and basically it is a branch of the NSA. The CSS (Central Security Service) is a liaison between the NSA and the military. Essentially, you have an information grid that consists of "bridge" agencies, he alludes in the show that "new ones are popping up all the time." Let me just say again for anyone who doesn't know, there really are HUGE "discretionary" funds allocated by Congress every year for intelligence- and no one but the CIA knows where it goes. If I understand it correctly the CIA is the figurehead but you have all of these other sub-agencies under them. Then in recent history you have the US government outsourcing some intelligence work out entirely to large private corporations. BUt that's another story.

I say all of that to say I believe it was probably supposed to be like the CSS. Sort of a grey area agency that most likely consists entirely of EX-military personnel because their skills and knowledge are of value, but it is outside of conventional military intelligence within the military. These sort of agencies can gather intel from both the civilian and military sides and serve ends for both sides depending on the case. And since a good number of the personnel are ex-military they would still recognize one another's ranks. It's finny Mac was an Army Special Forces soldier and yet he's never called anything by Pete to recognize that. I suppose he may have just been a PFC but I am almost certain I heard somewhere you have to at least be a Corporal before look at you for recruitment, although I could be wrong. Plus Nam was a different time- in wartime they rush people through training and into elite positions more quickly than usual as, uh, there are more openings everyday :/

So I would imagine that is the sort of agency the DXS was supposed to be, just my two cents worth...

That makes a lot of sense actually and does kinda fit what we know of the organization too.

Bear in mind that MacGyver, especially first season MacGyver, reflected the intelligence world of 1985, not the intelligence world of today. The DXS is a fictional version of the CIA, with the added fictional aspect that they are allowed to operate within US borders as well as overseas. They don't resemble military intelligence in any way (setting aside the inevitable oxymoron).

The CIA in the mid-80s was still actively involved in the Cold War, and had plenty of former military personnel who had served in Viet Nam but were not career military. The move frommilitary intelligence to government intelligence was a commonenough career step. And Mac's early episode 'freelance' work was attributed to just about everyone and anyone -- partly because the continuity was so foggy, admittedly.

We had a discussion thread a couple of years ago about the Colonel/General conversation in "Deathlock", and how it's a recognition exchange, with Mac feeding Karen a piece of wrong information to establish her credentials, since he doesn't know her.

In "The Human Factor" and "Countdown", it's established that Pete was in the military during Viet Nam. In the former, they go into the fact that he disliked the military and was glad to be out of it.

However, a former Colonel is still a Colonel -- the value of the recognition signal in "Deathlock" rested on the idea that it was an obscure piece of information, one that Karen would only know if she actually worked for Pete.

I hadn't thought about Pete's rank being obscure so only real DXS people would know about it.

Good point.

Wow that's true, I totally forgot that I read somewhere the CIA (technically) isn't allowed to operate within US borders. So that would have made it difficult to set the show in the US if he worked for the CIA. Who knows, but that's the joy of creating a fictional world- you can do less homework before writing the episode to make it believable

I also think the DXS is a thinly fictionalized version of the CIA. More proof of this comes in later eppys like Blind Faith, in which it becomes clear that the DXS is getting into much darker territory than before... messing with other countries' governments and trying to install puppet regimes.

What I find interesting is the relationship between the Phoenix Foundation and the DXS. At first, they seem to work together occasionally, or at least are on good terms with each other. But by the fifth or sixth season, they are clearly rival organizations that don't think much of each other. The DXS bunch thinks the Phoenix Foundation is made up of unrealistic, pie-in-the-sky idealists, and the Phoenix Foundation folks think the DXS has gone way too far over to the dark side. (Which, of course, the DXS has... I think the show's creators and writers definitely had an agenda here, which is not necessarily a bad thing. I have a feeling they wanted their viewers to be aware, and wary, of the darker side of intelligence agencies. Given the CIA's history, this is more than understandable!)

Hmmm, I never really paid any attention the references in the show about this, that's another excuse to rewatch them all But that is very interesting if they were trying to make a statement. Heck, at Barnes and Noble tonight I saw a book in the Bargains section that was called something like "The dark history of the CIA" or something similar. Kind of interesting.

I'm not sure that they were trying to cast the DXS itself as "gone over to the Dark Side" -- they had individual DXS agents go rogue (Early Retirement, Blind Faith, and Obsessed, if I recall correctly). In each case, the rogue agent complained about how they weren't being allowed to take "necessary steps" to accomplish what they thought was right. So yes, those were digs at the CIA, but not necessarily casting the DXS as inherently bad themselves.