Discover the Best Books Written by Paula Broadwell

Paula Dean Broadwell is an American writer, academic, and former military officer. Broadwell served in the US Army on both active and reserve duty for over 20 years, including time as a military school undergraduate with experience in over 70 countries. In 2012, she co-authored, with Vernon Loeb, All In The Education of General David Petraeus, a biography of then-International Security Assistance Force commander David Petraeus. She is the co-founder and co-director of the Think Broader Foundation, a media consulting firm that addresses gender bias in the media and society. 

Broadwell is most notable for her involvement in the Petraeus scandal. Broadwell was born in Bismarck, North Dakota, on November 9, 1972. She attended Century High School, where she was homecoming queen, valedictorian of the class of 1991, and an all-state basketball player. In 2006 Broadwell was inducted into the Century High School Hall of Fame. Broadwell graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1995 with a Bachelor of Science degree in engineering and political geography.

In 2006, she earned a Master of Arts degree in international security from the University of Denver's Josef Korbel School of International Studies. She earned a Master of Public Administration degree from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University in 2008. Broadwell was a research associate in the Kennedy School's Center for Public Leadership Fellows, a term member at the Council on Foreign Relations, a Distinguished Young Leader in the French-America Foundation and American Council on Germany, and a national finalist in the White House Fellows program.

Broadwell was elected as the Harvard student representative to the Academy of Achievement in 2006. During this time, she also worked at The Fletcher School at Tufts University as the Deputy Director of the Jebsen Center on Counter-Terrorism. In 2008, Broadwell entered the Ph.D. program at the Department of War Studies at King's College London. As of February 2014, Broadwell was listed as a "former student," presumably without receiving a Ph.D. Her lead supervisor at KCL was Lawrence Freedman.

Broadwell served in the United States Army and the United States Army Reserve as a military intelligence officer on four continents, serving in the disciplines of electronic warfare, document exploitation, counterterrorism analysis and operations, and human intelligence work. In August 2012, Broadwell was promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel in the Reserve. On November 14, 2012, Broadwell was stripped of her clearances to access classified information; her promotion to lieutenant colonel was revoked, and she was demoted back to major.

The Army then classified Broadwell as being ineligible for further promotion due to her being under investigation by the Army for the Petraeus affair scandal. This classification remained in place until the investigation was fully resolved. Broadwell applied for a position with the FBI in 2001, passing the polygraph, academic, and life-experience requirements. A retired FBI agent quoted by The Daily Beast suggested that the FBI would have been very impressed with her qualifications and experience. 

While the FBI did offer Broadwell a position, she decided instead to attend Harvard University. Broadwell met Petraeus in 2006 while he was a speaker at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. She was a graduate student at the University of Denver at that time. According to The Charlotte Observer, Broadwell told him about her research interests after he spoke. He handed her his card and offered his help. She began a doctoral dissertation that included a case study of his leadership, with Petraeus fully cooperating.

Broadwell then co-authored (with Vernon Loeb) a biography of Petraeus, All In: The Education of General David Petraeus, published in January 2012. The writer, Joshua Foust, challenged the accuracy of Broadwell's account of the US destruction of the Afghan village of Khosrow Sofla. Soldiers and officers came to her defense, questioning Foust's hostility toward Broadwell. Broadwell was deputy director of the Jebsen Center for Counter-Terrorism Studies at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. 

She also worked with the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force. Broadwell has also written for The New York Times, CNN Security Blog, and The Boston Globe, as well as publishing book chapters in edited volumes. In June 2009 and June 2011, Broadwell attended meetings on Afghanistan-Pakistan policy in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, which is part of the White House complex.