[nickelcitymario]

I think you're right about the motivation. But I also think it's wrong-headed.

They should lean into who they are: The biggest, baddest, most secretive government organization on the planet. THAT's their brand. That appeals to some and turns away others. But trying to pretend they're anything else will fail to persuade anyone. Those who are attracted to the truth about the CIA are likely to be turned off by this mass-appeal approach. And those who hate them are unlikely to feel differently based on this.

It's like the Freemasons: What makes them attractive to those who are interested is the secret nature of the organization. Trying to make the organization more friendly and open is counter-productive.

Lean into the mystique, gosh darn it. Very few "brands" genuinely and organically have that kind of mystery about them. The CIA, like them or not, definitely have it.

[apendleton]

My guess is that the set of people attracted to that mystique is demographically skewed, and the demographics it favors are probably already well-represented. The copy in this new redesign seems specifically oriented towards doing better on that score.

I would imagine the CIA has a particular interest in diversity -- on the operations side, they probably need people who can plausibly pass as locals in a wide variety of countries, and on the analyst side, they probably need native speakers of lots of languages, people familiar with lots of cultural contexts, etc.