Council Launches Nation’s First Online Encyclopedia of Terrorism

New Q&A website offers reliable answers to America’s questions on terrorism

January 24, 2002 – The Council on Foreign Relations today launched a unique online encyclopedia of terrorism and America’s response to give the public an easy-to-read, authoritative primer on what the experts know––and don’t know. “Our aim is to give people one reliable and understandable site to get briefed on the basics, and sort out fact from fiction,” said Council President Leslie H. Gelb.

Written by a Council team and drawing upon leading experts, TERRORISM: QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS will provide up-to-date, authoritative information in a crisp and clear question and answer format.

“We’ll recheck and update the answers as events change; we’ll keep adding new Q&A fact sheets; and if we ever find that something’s not fully accurate, we’ll fix it,” said Gelb. “Our watchword is simple: reliable information in troubled times.”

Produced in cooperation with the Markle Foundation, the new site also features This Week in the War on Terrorism summarizing new events in key areas such as the Investigation, Homeland Defense, New Legislation, and Global Repercussions of 9/11.

"The goal of terrorism is to inspire fear—one effective antidote to fear is the facts," said Zoë Baird, President of the Markle Foundation. "By partnering with the Council on Foreign Relations, one of the nation’s foremost institutions dedicated to increasing the public’s understanding of the world, we are able to provide trustworthy and timely answers to the questions on the minds of millions of people around the world."

Content on the site has been carefully researched, reported, and written by the Council on Foreign Relations, the nation’s leading foreign policy organization. The editorial team is led by Warren Bass, a former associate editor of Foreign Affairs who holds a Ph.D. in Middle East history from Columbia, and Calvin Sims, the Council’s Edward R. Murrow press fellow and former Tokyo bureau chief of The New York Times.

The weekly summary is produced by former National Security Council staffer Kenneth Pollack, now deputy director of National Security Studies at CFR; Dafna Hochman is deputy director of the project.

About the Markle Foundation

The Markle Foundation works to realize the potential of emerging communications media and information technology to improve people’s lives and promotes the development of communications industries that address public needs.