WASHINGTON — Shut the duvet on the CIA World Factbook: The spy company introduced Wednesday that after greater than 60 years, it’s shuttering the favored reference handbook.
The announcement posted to the CIA’s web site provided no motive for the choice to finish the Factbook, but it surely follows a vow from Director John Ratcliffe to finish applications that don’t advance the company’s core missions.
First launched in 1962 as a printed, categorized reference handbook for intelligence officers, the Factbook provided an in depth, by-the-numbers image of overseas nations, their economies, militaries, sources and societies. The Factbook proved so helpful that different federal businesses started utilizing it, and inside a decade, an unclassified model was launched to the general public.
After logging on in 1997, the Factbook shortly turned a preferred reference website for journalists, trivia aficionados and the writers of faculty essays, racking up hundreds of thousands of visits per 12 months.
The White Home has moved to cut staffing at the CIA and the Nationwide Safety Company early in Trump’s second time period, forcing the company to do extra with much less.
The CIA didn’t return a message searching for remark Wednesday concerning the resolution to stop publication of the Factbook.
