Raelynn J. Hillhouse is an American

national security National security, or national defence (national defense in American English), is the security and Defence (military), defence of a sovereign state, including its Citizenship, citizens, economy, and institutions, which is regarded as a duty of ...

and Intelligence community analyst, former

smuggler Smuggling is the illegal transportation of objects, substances, information or people, such as out of a house or buildings, into a prison, or across an international border, in violation of applicable laws or other regulations. More broadly, soc ...

during the

Cold War The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...

spy novel Spy fiction is a genre of literature involving espionage as an important context or plot device. It emerged in the early twentieth century, inspired by rivalries and intrigues between the major powers, and the establishment of modern intellig ...

ist and health care executive.

Personal history

Hillhouse taught at the

University of Michigan The University of Michigan (U-M, U of M, or Michigan) is a public university, public research university in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest institution of higher education in the state. The University of Mi ...

and was an

assistant professor Assistant professor is an academic rank just below the rank of an associate professor used in universities or colleges, mainly in the United States, Canada, Japan, and South Korea. Overview This position is generally taken after earning a doct ...

of political science at the

University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa The University of Hawaii at Mānoa is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Honolulu, Hawaii, United States. It is the flagship campus of the University of Hawaiʻi system and houses the main offic ...

. She is a founding member of the

International Thriller Writers International Thriller Writers (ITW), was founded October 9, 2004, at Bouchercon XXXV, the "World Mystery and Suspense Conference", in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Six months later, some 150 authors with more than one billion books sold worldwide h ...

. Hillhouse is also a health care executive who has developed behavioral health programs for children with autism. She was CEO and President of Hawaii Behavioral Health. She also founded Thrive Autism Solutions, one of the largest providers of autism behavioral health services in the Midwest. Hillhouse studied in Central and

Eastern Europe Eastern Europe is a subregion of the Europe, European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural and socio-economic connotations. Its eastern boundary is marked by the Ural Mountain ...

for over six years at various institutions including

Moscow State University Moscow State University (MSU), officially M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University,. is a public university, public research university in Moscow, Russia. The university includes 15 research institutes, 43 faculties, more than 300 departments, a ...

, Moscow Finance Institute,

Humboldt University of Berlin The Humboldt University of Berlin (, abbreviated HU Berlin) is a public research university in the central borough of Mitte in Berlin, Germany. The university was established by Frederick William III on the initiative of Wilhelm von Humbol ...

Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen Eberhard is an old Germanic name meaning the strength or courage of a wild boar. People First name *Eberhard of Friuli (815–866), Duke and key figure in the Carolingian Empire *Eberhard of Béthune (died 1212), Flemish grammarian *Eberhard I, Du ...

(both in Germany), and Babes-Bolyai University (

Cluj Cluj-Napoca ( ; ), or simply Cluj ( , ), is a city in northwestern Romania. It is the second-most populous city in the country and the seat of Cluj County. Geographically, it is roughly equidistant from Bucharest (), Budapest () and Belgrade ( ...

, Romania). She earned her undergraduate degree from

Washington University in St. Louis Washington University in St. Louis (WashU) is a private research university in St. Louis, Missouri, United States. Founded in 1853 by a group of civic leaders and named for George Washington, the university spans 355 acres across its Danforth ...

John McGuire (September 8, 2004).
The Spy who Loved it
" ''

St. Louis Post-Dispatch The ''St. Louis Post-Dispatch'' is a regional newspaper based in St. Louis, Missouri, serving the St. Louis metropolitan area. It is the largest daily newspaper in the metropolitan area by circulation, surpassing the '' Belleville News-Democra ...

', page E1'' and her MA in Russian and East European Studies as well as her

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

in political science from the

. When living as a student in Europe, she claims to have engaged in the

black market A black market is a Secrecy, clandestine Market (economics), market or series of transactions that has some aspect of illegality, or is not compliant with an institutional set of rules. If the rule defines the set of goods and services who ...

between East and West, running Cuban rum, smuggling jewels from the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

and laundering

East Bloc The Eastern Bloc, also known as the Communist Bloc (Combloc), the Socialist Bloc, the Workers Bloc, and the Soviet Bloc, was an unofficial coalition of communist states of Central and Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America that were a ...

currencies. She claims to have been recruited by the East German secret police, the

Stasi The Ministry for State Security (, ; abbreviated MfS), commonly known as the (, an abbreviation of ), was the Intelligence agency, state security service and secret police of East Germany from 1950 to 1990. It was one of the most repressive pol ...

, and by the

Libyan Intelligence Service Mukhabarat el-Jamahiriya () (Intelligence of the Jamahiriya) was the national intelligence service of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi. During the First Libyan Civil War, agency director Abuzed Omar Dorda was captured by anti-Gaddafi forces, the a ...

. Some sources assert that she was an American

intelligence officer An intelligence officer is a member of the intelligence field employed by an organization to collect, compile or analyze information (known as intelligence) which is of use to that organization. The word of ''officer'' is a working title, not a r ...

, but Hillhouse denies this. Hillhouse was born in the

Ozarks The Ozarks, also known as the Ozark Mountains, Ozark Highlands or Ozark Plateau, is a physiographic region in the U.S. states of Missouri, Arkansas, and Oklahoma, as well as a small area in the southeastern corner of Kansas. The Ozarks cover ...

and currently lives in Hawaii.

Blog

Hillhouse writes a national security blog which has broken multiple national security stories. Her work has been extensively cited in global media, books and academic journals and law reviews. In 2007, the '' New York Times Week in Review'' republished excerpts from an exclusive interview from Hillhouse's blog with the head of the private military corporation

Blackwater USA Constellis, formerly Blackwater, is an American private military contractor founded on December 26, 1997, by former Navy SEAL officer Erik Prince. It was renamed Xe Services in 2009, and was again renamed to Academi in 2011, after it was acquir ...

. In June 2007, Hillhouse discovered the US national Intelligence Community budget

metadata Metadata (or metainformation) is "data that provides information about other data", but not the content of the data itself, such as the text of a message or the image itself. There are many distinct types of metadata, including: * Descriptive ...

in a declassified PowerPoint presentation released by the Office of the

Director of National Intelligence The director of national intelligence (DNI) is a Cabinet of the United States#Current Cabinet and Cabinet-rank officials, cabinet-level Federal government of the United States, United States government intelligence and security official. The p ...

. She broke international news stories on national security risks caused by the explosion in outsourcing governmental intelligence functions. Her controversial articles have twice elicited a response from the Office of the

—the only times the office of the nation's chief spy has ever publicly responded to the writings of a private citizen.

Death of Bin Laden Report

On August 7, 2011, Hillhouse published an account of Osama bin Laden's death on her blog that suggested Pakistan's

Inter-Services Intelligence The Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) is the premier Pakistani Intelligence community, intelligence agency of Pakistan. It is responsible for gathering, processing, and analyzing any information from around the world that is deemed relevant t ...

(ISI) had been sheltering bin Laden in return for Saudi cash and that he was betrayed by a Pakistani intelligence officer. Hillhouse's sources claimed that the narrative given by the White House of the courier revealing the location of bin Laden was a cover story, created to hide involvement of US allies in sheltering bin Laden. According to ''The Telegraph'', Hillhouse's account might explain why U.S. forces encountered no resistance on their way to and in

Abbottabad Abbottabad is a city in the Hazara Division of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, Pakistan. It is the 40th largest city in the country and 6th largest in the province by population, and serves as the headquarter of its namesake tehsil and district ...

, and why some residents in Abbottabad were warned to stay in their houses the day before the raid. Her 2011 story received widespread international attention and was picked up by ''The Daily Telegraph'', ''The Daily Mail'', ''The National Post'', ''The Vancouver Sun'', ''The Sydney Morning Herald'', ''The New Zealand Herald'', and others, but had little coverage in the US.

Controversy over report of bin Laden's death

In May 2015,

Pulitzer Prize The Pulitzer Prizes () are 23 annual awards given by Columbia University in New York City for achievements in the United States in "journalism, arts and letters". They were established in 1917 by the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made his fo ...

-winning investigative journalist

Seymour Hersh Seymour Myron Hersh (born April 8, 1937) is an American investigative journalist and political writer. He gained recognition in 1969 for exposing the My Lai massacre and its cover-up during the Vietnam War, for which he received the 1970 Pulitzer ...

published a report in the ''

London Review of Books The ''London Review of Books'' (''LRB'') is a British literary magazine published bimonthly that features articles and essays on fiction and non-fiction subjects, which are usually structured as book reviews. History The ''London Review of Book ...

'' in which he claimed to break the story of bin Laden's death. His claims mirrored the ones which Hillhouse raised four years earlier. ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'', ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'', locally known as ''The'' ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'' or ''WP'', is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the national capital. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington m ...

'' and other global media acknowledged that Hillhouse wrote about the events years before Hersh, although Hersh denied ever having seen her account.

NBC News NBC News is the news division of the American broadcast television network NBC. The division operates under NBCUniversal Media Group, a division of NBCUniversal, which is itself a subsidiary of Comcast. The news division's various operations r ...

independently reported that a Pakistani intelligence officer was the source of the original bin Laden location report, and not the courier. NBC News and

Agence France-Presse Agence France-Presse (; AFP) is a French international news agency headquartered in Paris, France. Founded in 1835 as Havas, it is the world's oldest news agency. With 2,400 employees of 100 nationalities, AFP has an editorial presence in 260 c ...

both reported that their sources indicated that a walk-in was a highly valuable asset in the discovery of bin Laden. Pakistan-based journalist Amir Mir in the ''

News International News Corp UK & Ireland Limited (trading as News UK, formerly News International and NI Group) is a List of newspapers in the United Kingdom, British newspaper publisher, and a wholly owned subsidiary of the American mass media Conglomerate (c ...

'' reported the walk-in's identity to be Usman Khalid, though that allegation was denied by Khalid's family.

Publications

Articles

She has also published stories on national security in the ''

Washington Post ''The Washington Post'', locally known as ''The'' ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'' or ''WP'', is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the national capital. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington m ...

'' and ''

The Nation ''The Nation'' is a progressive American monthly magazine that covers political and cultural news, opinion, and analysis. It was founded on July 6, 1865, as a successor to William Lloyd Garrison's '' The Liberator'', an abolitionist newspaper ...

''. In the controversial Washington Post article, Hillhouse wrote that "the private spy industry has succeeded where no foreign government has: It has penetrated the CIA and is running the show." In the Nation article, Hillhouse revealed that private companies are heavily involved in the nation’s most important and most sensitive national security document — the President’s Daily Brief. Hillhouse was also a regular contributor to

Wired Wired may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Music * ''Wired'' (Jeff Beck album), 1976 * ''Wired'' (Hugh Cornwell album), 1993 * ''Wired'' (Mallory Knox album), 2017 * "Wired", a song by Prism from their album '' Beat Street'' * "Wired ...

's national security blog, "The Danger Room". *"Don't Blame Blackwater", ''The Christian Science Monitor'', November 2, 2007. *"The Government Can Find You." ''The New York Times'', August 7, 2007. *“Outsourcing Intelligence”, ''The Nation'', July 31, 2007. *"Who Runs the CIA?" ''Washington Post'', July 8, 2007. *“A Security Contractor Defends His Team, Which, He Says, Is Not a Private Army”, ''The New York Times'', April 29, 2007. *"Communist Politics and Sexual Dissidents. Social Movements in Eastern Europe." ''Sexual Minorities and Society: The Changing Attitudes toward Sexuality in 20th Century Europe''. Tallinn: Estonian Academy of Sciences, 1991. *"Out of the Closet behind the Wall: Sexual Politics and Social Change in the GDR." ''Slavic Review'', 49:4 (Winter 1990), pages 585-96.

Books

Hillhouse's debut novel, ''Rift Zone'' (2004), is a spy thriller about a female smuggler who becomes entangled in an East German plot to stop the fall of the

Berlin Wall The Berlin Wall (, ) was a guarded concrete Separation barrier, barrier that encircled West Berlin from 1961 to 1989, separating it from East Berlin and the East Germany, German Democratic Republic (GDR; East Germany). Construction of the B ...

. The

American Booksellers Association The American Booksellers Association (ABA) is a non-profit trade association founded in 1900 that promotes independent bookstores in the United States. ABA's core members are key participants in their communities' local economy and culture, and to ...

Book Sense program selected it as one of the best books of 2004 and

Library Journal ''Library Journal'' is an American trade publication for librarians. It was founded in 1876 by Melvil Dewey. It reports news about the library world, emphasizing public libraries, and offers feature articles about aspects of professional prac ...

named it one of the year's most promising debuts. Her second novel, ''Outsourced'' (2007) is a political thriller about the outsourcing of the

CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA; ) is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States tasked with advancing national security through collecting and analyzing intelligence from around the world and ...

and

Pentagon In geometry, a pentagon () is any five-sided polygon or 5-gon. The sum of the internal angles in a simple polygon, simple pentagon is 540°. A pentagon may be simple or list of self-intersecting polygons, self-intersecting. A self-intersecting ...

and the turf wars between the two agencies. Publishers Weekly named the audio version one of the best books of the year. *''Outsourced.'' New York: Forge Books, 2007. **(Audio). Blackstone Audiobooks, 2007. **(Italian). Mondadori, 2008. **(Dutch). Uitgeverij Luitingh, 2008. *"Diplomatic Constraints." ''Thriller''. Ed. by James Patterson. New York: Mira Books, 2006. *"I knew Julius No. Julius No was a friend of mine. Osama, you are no Dr. No.—An open letter to bin Laden from James Bond’s Greatest Villains." ''James Bond in the 21st Century: Why We Still Need 007.'' Dallas: BenBella Books, 2006. *"Secret Agent Chick." ''This is Chick-Lit.'' Ed. by Lauren Baratz-Logsted. Dallas: BenBella Books, 2006. *''Rift Zone''. Forge Books: New York, 2004. **(Mass market paperback) Forge Books: New York, 2005. **(Russian translation, Шпионка по случаю), St. Petersburg: Alpharet, 2006. *"East Germany--Lothar DeMaizière," ''Leaders of Nations''. Lansdale ennsylvania Current Leaders Publishing Co., 1990. *"A Reevaluation of Soviet Policy in Central Europe: The Soviet Union and the Occupation of Austria." ''Eastern European Politics and Societies'', 3:1 (1989), pages 83-104.