Hougan wed Carolyn Johnson and began work as a newspaper reporter and photographer for the Prince George's County Sentinel in the Washington metropolitan area.
[4] Reporting from Mexico City, Amsterdam, Ibiza, Athens, and London, his articles for the two foundations about "contemporary Western youth movements" were published in national newspapers and magazines.
"[citation needed] Howard Hughes, Robert Maheu, Robert Vesco, Aristotle Onassis, and Yoshio Kodama were among the book's more infamous subjects, but its most important contribution to the investigative canon may have been its reportage about lesser known intelligence agents such as Bernard Spindel, Lou Russell, Mitch WerBell, John Frank, Joseph Shimon and others.
Attendees included Dick Russell (author of The Man Who Knew Too Much), Don DeLillo (Libra and Underworld), Kevin Coogan (Dreamer of the Day), G. Gordon Liddy (Will) and others.
"[8] In early 1991, Hougan was retained as a private investigator by AFL-CIO's Industrial Union Department (IUD) and by the United Steelworkers of America (USWA).
Hougan discovered that the plant from which the workers had been locked-out was secretly controlled by Marc Rich, a fugitive billionaire and commodities broker then resident in Zug, Switzerland.
For the next two years, Hougan led the investigative component of an international campaign marked by demonstrations in Switzerland and England, and by congressional hearings in Washington and parliamentary speeches in Bern.
What happened in this small West Virginia town serves as a beacon of hope for American workers..."[9] Hougan participated in G. Gordon Liddy's radio show on June 18, 1992, at the Watergate Hotel on the 20th anniversary of the Watergate crime, with Len Colodny along with John Barrett, Paul Leeper, and Carl Shoffler, the three arresting police officers.
[citation needed] On assignment for the television documentary program, 60 Minutes, Hougan and Lowell Bergman paved the way for Mike Wallace to interview three of Hezbollah's most powerful figures: its spiritual leader, Sheik Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah; its former Secretary-General, Sheik Subhi al-Tufayli; and Hussein Mussawi, an Iranian agent and head of Islamic Amal.
[13] To date, his subsequent novels, all written under the John Case pseudonym, include The Syndrome (2002); The Eighth Day (2002); The Murder Artist (2004); and Ghost Dancer (2007).
[17][independent source needed] Rebecca Moore endorsed Hougan's body of work as being the "most credible example of leftist conspiracy literature.
[22] Hougan provided a featured interview for a 2004 episode of the television documentary series, Betrayal!, regarding disgraced CIA officer Edwin Wilson.