Files in this series were originally identified, “Subject files.” The processing archivist revised the title for specificity. Folders contain correspondence, research notes, drafts, and ideas for future writing projects. There are folders titled for each of eight countries that contain country-specific research and photographs. The subseries also contains the germination of article topics or pitches to Handler’s colleagues for ideas to be investigated, as well as Handler’s notes from civil rights conferences from the period after he returned to the U.S.

Of note are materials documenting Handler’s relationship with Malcolm X. These include postcards and letters from X during his Hajj to Mecca in Saudi Arabia, in which he often describes his feeling of spiritual enlightenment. Correspondence from this period is signed, “el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz." Other documents include a drafted piece on X’s assassination by Handler, and a galley proof of the first edition of The Autobiography of Malcolm X, for which Handler wrote the introduction.

Folders pertaining to the Soviet Union include research files and several drafts of an unpublished manuscript by Handler written in the postwar period. “The Soviets Report on the State of the Soviet Union” (box 3, folders 2-3) is the title for a series of essays critiquing the socio-political state of the USSR after the dissolution of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) programs. Folders containing the drafts of an untitled manuscript (box 2, folder 28-29 and box 3, folders 8-9) are about the influence of Soviet ideology and the increased global political presence of the Soviet Union as a result of World War II, written by Handler after 1946.