RE: Operation "Witches Everywhere" — Final Deliverables
FROM: Handler Austin, Deep Cover Division, HIST 102
TO: All Field Agents Currently Enrolled
CLASSIFICATION: Urgent / Graded
Intelligence has confirmed that the "Witches Everywhere" Capstone Assignment is ACTIVE. This memorandum serves as your official operational briefing. Two classified documents are required for mission closure. Failure to submit constitutes a breach of academic protocol and will be logged in your permanent dossier — also known as your final grade.
📁 Document Alpha: Research Notes — Archival investigation of five persons of interest. Evidence dossiers, Soviet code names, Venona cable intercepts, and your own analytical judgments. (50 points)
📝 Document Bravo: Essay Planner & Draft — Full analytical essay built from your research. Thesis, body paragraphs with archival evidence, conclusion, and reflection. (50 points)
Each document is to be submitted to its designated Canvas assignment, each with its own independent grading rubric. Submission through unauthorized channels will not be accepted. Telepathy has not been approved as a delivery method.
DUE DATE: Check the Canvas assignment for your official deadline.
This deadline is non-negotiable. The archives will not wait. The Gorsky Memo did not wait. Senator McCarthy did not wait. Neither will Canvas.
The Assignment
Most Americans first encounter the word McCarthyism as a synonym for reckless accusation — a cautionary tale about demagoguery, fear, and the abuse of political power. Senator Joseph McCarthy is remembered as a bully who destroyed innocent lives with unsubstantiated charges. The Senate's Tydings Committee officially declared his accusations "a fraud and a hoax." Textbooks routinely assert he never identified a single spy. His era is compared directly to the Salem witch trials of 1692: hysteria mistaken for evidence.
But what if the witch hunt found real witches?
The declassified Venona Project cables and the internal KGB records of the Vassiliev Notebooks — hidden behind the Iron Curtain until the 1990s — name names, describe intelligence operations, and identify U.S. government officials who supplied the Soviet Union with information during the 1940s. In some cases, the archival record confirms accusations McCarthy made. In others, the evidence is thin or absent.
A second Senate investigation — the McCarran Committee (1951–52) — reached very different conclusions than the Tydings Committee, finding that communist infiltration had genuinely occurred and had shaped U.S. foreign policy. It is rarely mentioned in standard U.S. history textbooks.
Your task: Investigate five individuals McCarthy accused. Evaluate the archival evidence for each. Build a historical argument about what the declassified record actually reveals — and write it up in a full essay.
"The practice of making unfair allegations or using unfair investigative techniques, especially in order to restrict dissent or political criticism."
— Dictionary.com, s.v. "McCarthyism," accessed 2026
Mission Briefing — How This Works
Open the Research Notes Form and investigate five individuals named by McCarthy. Three cases provide direct links to declassified NSA Venona cables and KGB archive documents — you read the primary sources and copy verbatim quotes. Two cases require independent research using the starting links provided and any other credible scholarly sources you can find.
For each person, you will record their government role, Soviet code name, McCarthy's accusation, archival quotes with citations, and your own analytical judgment: spy, probable agent, sympathizer, or unclear? Your campus librarian is one of the most valuable resources available to you for this step — do not hesitate to ask for help.
When all five entries are complete, export your work as a .txt file — but do not submit it to Canvas yet. You will take this file to NotebookLM in Step 2, generate your Briefing Doc, paste it back into the form, and export a final version that includes both your research and the Briefing Doc. That final export is what gets submitted.
🔍 Open Research Notes Form →Once your Research Notes are complete, export the .txt file and upload it to a new Google NotebookLM notebook as your only source. Then use the Briefing Doc feature in the Studio panel to generate a structured summary drawn entirely from your own research.
Copy the full text of the Briefing Doc and paste it into the designated field at the bottom of your Research Notes form — it will be included in your exported submission file. This step is a process check: the quality of the Briefing Doc reflects the quality of your research. A thin or generic summary signals thin research.
Sources only: Upload your Research Notes .txt file as the sole source in NotebookLM. Do not add outside sources. The Briefing Doc must reflect your own research — nothing more.
Open the Essay Planner and build your historical argument. Work through the scaffolded fields — thesis, introduction, three archival body paragraphs, an optional McCarran Committee paragraph, an optional counterargument paragraph, conclusion, and works cited. Each field is a piece of your essay, not a substitute for it.
When the scaffolding is complete, move to Step 7 — Full Essay Draft and assemble everything into a single continuous document. Your essay is already written in pieces above that field — connect the parts, smooth the transitions, and you are done. Target 600–900 words.
Export your completed planner as a .txt file for submission. The file contains both your scaffolding and your full essay draft.
✍️ Open Essay Planner →Submit each file to its designated Canvas assignment — each has its own submission link and grading rubric.
📁 Research Notes (.txt) — includes your five case entries and your NotebookLM Briefing Doc. 50 points
📝 Essay Planner & Draft (.txt) — includes all scaffolding fields and your full assembled essay. 50 points
Both forms auto-save to your browser as you work. Always export before closing.
Research Guide — Primary Sources
The following sources are your starting points. You may also use any credible scholarly or primary source you locate independently — encyclopedias, university press books, government archives, or library databases. Your campus librarian can help you locate sources you cannot find through a basic web search. All five starting links are also embedded directly in each person's card inside the Research Notes form.
Harry Dexter White — JURIST
Assistant Secretary of the Treasury. NSA Venona cable (4 Aug 1944) + Gorsky Memo / White Notebook No. 2.
NSA Venona — White Cable (PDF) →Alger Hiss — ALES
State Department official. Venona Cable #1822 (30 Mar 1945). Contested identification — read both sides.
Famous Trials — Venona Cable #1822 →Harold Glasser — RUBLE
Treasury Department economist. Multiple Venona cables. Gorsky Memo confirmation.
Wikipedia — Harold Glasser →Lauchlin Currie — PAGE
White House economic advisor. Independent research required. Start with Haynes cross-reference.
Haynes — McCarthy & Venona Cross-Reference →William Remington — No confirmed code name
Commerce Department economist. Perjury conviction; no Venona cable confirmation. Independent research required.
Wikipedia — William Remington →📌 Note on Soviet Code Names
Soviet intelligence used cryptonyms — secret pseudonyms — for all American agents in cables and memos. Only senior Moscow officers knew the true identities. These were matched to real people decades later using Venona decrypts, defector testimony, and the 1948 Gorsky Memo.
NSA Venona Archive
Full collection of ~3,000 declassified Soviet cables. Organized alphabetically by code name.
NSA Venona Project →Vassiliev Notebooks
KGB officer's handwritten notes from Moscow Center files, including the 1948 Gorsky Memo listing active agents by real name.
White Notebook No. 2 / Gorsky Memo (PDF) →McCarthy's Senate Speech
The February 20, 1950 Congressional Record — McCarthy's "81 cases" speech naming government officials as security risks.
Congressional Record (PDF) →All work submitted for this assignment must reflect your own research and analysis of the primary sources. Do not use AI tools to generate, rewrite, or complete any portion of the Research Notes form or the Essay Planner.
The one permitted use of AI in this assignment is generating the NotebookLM Briefing Doc in Step 2 — and only when working exclusively from your own exported Research Notes file. Review the class AI use policy before beginning.
This memorandum will self-destruct upon the closing of the browser tab. Handler Austin will deny all knowledge of its existence. Your grade, however, will not be denied.
Good luck, Agent. The archives are waiting. So is the gradebook.
— Handler Austin · Deep Cover Division · HIST 102 Clandestine Operations Unit
P.S. Nobody followed you. Probably.