There is Nothing For You Here - Dr. Fiona Hill

In this episode, we meet a guest whose career is one that can only leave us, mere mortals, in awe. A stellar career made all the more remarkable for our guest’s very humble yet wonderfully grounded starting point.

Dr Fiona Hill worked as an intelligence analyst for George W. Bush and Barack Obama and in 2017 was invited in to work with a 3rd president and ultimately provide a witness testimony at Donal Trump's impeachment hearing.

Dr Hill’s latest book, “There is nothing for you here” uses as its title a phrase from her dad Alf, an ex-miner, who simply wanted the best for his bright inquisitive and determined daughter. A bonus point for anyone who guesses the word missing from the book title phrase, the clue is that Fiona is from County Durham.

If I tell you it took 12 months to arrange this chat you’ll appreciate how very much in demand our guest is. I can also confirm it was most certainly worth the wait.

Bio – Dr Fiona Hill the Robert Bosch Senior Fellow at the Center on the United States and Europe in the Foreign Policy program at the Brookings Institution. Fiona is also the newly appointed Chancellor of Durham University.

From 2017 to 2019, she served as deputy assistant to the president and senior director for European and Russian affairs on the National Security Council. From 2006 to 2009, she served as a national intelligence officer for Russia and Eurasia at the National Intelligence Council. She has researched and published extensively on issues related to Russia, the Caucasus, Central Asia, regional conflicts, energy, and strategic issues. Co-author of Mr. Putin: Operative in the Kremlin and The Siberian Curse: How Communist Planners Left Russia Out in the Cold, she holds a master's degree in Soviet studies and a doctorate in history from Harvard University and a master's in Russian and modern history from St. Andrews University in Scotland. She also has pursued studies at Moscow's Maurice Thorez Institute of Foreign Languages. Hill is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and lives in the Washington, DC, area.

“There Is Nothing For You Here” Dr Fiona Hill’s latest book

Fiona grew up in a world of terminal decay. The last of the local mines had closed, businesses were shuttering, and despair was etched on the faces around her. Her father urged her to get out of their blighted corner of northern England: "There is nothing for you here, pet," he said. The coal miner's daughter managed to go further than he ever could have dreamed. She studied in Moscow and at Harvard, became an American citizen, and served three U.S. Presidents. But in the heartlands of both Russia and the United States, she saw troubling reflections of her hometown and similar populist impulses. By the time she offered her brave testimony in the first impeachment inquiry of President Trump, Hill knew that the desperation of forgotten people was driving American politics over the brink--and that we were running out of time to save ourselves from Russia's fate. In this powerful, deeply personal account, she shares what she has learned, and shows why expanding opportunity is the only long-term hope for our democracy.

Find out more about our guest Dr. Fiona Hill: https://www.brookings.edu/experts/fiona-hill/

Dr. Hill’s Latest Book: There’s Nothing For You Here

https://www.brookings.edu/books/there-is-nothing-for-you-here-finding-opportunity-in-the-twenty-first-century/