Close the cover on the CIA World Factbook: The spy agency announced Wednesday that after more than 60 years, it is shuttering the popular reference manual. All pages have been taken offline, including archived copies of earlier versions. The announcement posted to the CIA's website offered no reason for the decision to end the Factbook, but it follows a vow from Director John Ratcliffe to end programs that don't advance the agency's core missions, the AP reports. The White House has moved to cut staffing at the CIA and the National Security Agency early in Trump's second term, forcing the agency to do more with less.
First launched in 1962 as a printed, classified reference manual for intelligence officers, the Factbook offered a detailed, by-the-numbers picture of foreign nations, their economies, militaries, resources, and societies. The Factbook proved so useful that other federal agencies began using it, and within a decade, an unclassified version was released to the public. After going online in 1997, the Factbook quickly became a popular reference site for journalists, teachers, trivia aficionados and the writers of college essays, racking up millions of visits per year.
"Only CIA insiders would know that officers donated some of their personal travel photos to the World Factbook, which hosted more than 5,000 photographs that were copyright-free for anyone to access and use," the agency said in its "fond farewell" to the Factbook. "Though the World Factbook is gone, in the spirit of its global reach and legacy, we hope you will stay curious about the world and find ways to explore it … in person or virtually."
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