REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, WASHINGTON - Paula Broadwell first met fellow West Point graduate David Petraeus in the spring of 2006, when she was a graduate student at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.
Broadwell was in the Army Reserve after being recalled three times to active duty since the Sept. 11 attacks to work on counterterrorism issues. She intended to return to active duty or get into the policy world, according to the preface of the Petraeus biography she would later write with a Washington Post editor.
Petraeus, who held much-praised military commands in Iraq and Afghanistan, resigned Friday after admitting he had an extramarital affair, a disclosure that ended the retired four-star general's civilian career as director of the CIA.
Broadwell wrote in the preface to "All In: The Education of General David Petraeus," published by Penguin in January, that while at Harvard, Petraeus passed along his card and offered to help her academic work on leadership.
Broadwell is a research associate at Harvard's Center for Public Leadership and a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of War Studies at King's College London, according to her biography on Penguin's website. The book began as research for her dissertation, a case study of Petraeus' leadership. It evolved into an authorized biography written with Washington Post editor Vernon Loeb after President Barack Obama put Petraeus in charge of Afghanistan in 2010.
In the Army Reserve, she specialized in military intelligence, spending time at the U.S. Special Operations Command and the FBI Counterterrorism Task Forces before pursuing an academic career, according to her Penguin bio. She "lived, worked, or traveled in more than 60 countries during more than 15 years of military service and work in geopolitical analysis and counterterrorism and counterinsurgency operations," her bio states. With the book done, Broadwell told friends she was returning to her dissertation, using part of her research on Petraeus to complete her doctorate.
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