Paula Broadwell

Gen. David H. Petraeus had just assumed his new role as U.S. Central Command chief in 2009 when he began introducing his staff to a young Harvard University researcher who was writing his biography. The woman, Paula Broadwell, then 37, had never written a book and had almost no journalistic experience. But that wasn't the only thing about her that made the general's aides nervous. Petraeus — already the most acclaimed U.S. military commander in recent decades — had until then been extraordinarily careful...

Both President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry bounced soccer balls around Tuesday: Obama at a White House meeting with Los Angeles's Galaxy and Kings — championship teams in soccer and hockey — and Kerry while goofing around with a women's soccer team in Kabul. Obama is known for his prowess on the basketball court, while Kerry has a legitimate soccer background, having played for the Yale team. Both men are clearly athletes, but politics would be their primary game.

Frederick and Kimberly Kagan, a husband-and-wife team of hawkish military analysts, put their jobs at influential Washington think tanks on hold for almost a year to work for Gen. David H. Petraeus when he was the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan. Provided desks, e-mail accounts and top-level security clearances in Kabul, they pored through classified intelligence reports, participated in senior-level strategy sessions and probed the assessments of field officers in order to advise Petraeus about...

LOS ANGELES — In his first public speech since resigning as head of the CIA, David Petraeus apologized for the extramarital affair that "caused such pain for my family, friends and supporters. " The hero of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars struck a somber, apologetic tone as he spoke to about 600 people, including his wife and many uniformed and decorated veterans, at the University of Southern California's annual ROTC dinner on Tuesday night. "I know I can never fully assuage the pain that I...

FBI agents searched the home of the woman at the center of the scandal involving former CIA director David H. Petraeus on Monday evening, carrying away boxes and bags of material and taking photographs inside her home in Charlotte. A senior law enforcement official said the agents were searching for any classified or sensitive documents that may have been in the possession of Paula Broadwell, a former military officer and Petraeus biographer whose extramarital affair with him led to his...

Paula Broadwell was a rising star who seemed destined for a sparkling career in foreign policy. A West Point graduate who excelled in triathlons, she was pursuing a doctorate at Harvard University and had found a mentor in Gen. David H. Petraeus, an iconic U.S. military leader. But in 2007, Broadwell was asked to leave the doctoral program at Harvard, where she had met Petraeus a year earlier, because her coursework did not meet the university's demanding standards,...

Paula Broadwell, whose extramarital affair with retired Gen. David H. Petraeus led to his resignation as CIA director , will not be charged with cyber-stalking over e-mails sent to another woman, federal prosecutors said Tuesday. Broadwell sent harassing e-mails to a Tampa socialite whom she apparently believed was threatening her relationship with Petraeus. The Tampa woman, Jill Kelley , shared the e-mails with an FBI agent, and the agency later opened an...

Popular generals in unpopular wars attract attention. Gen. David Petraeus has already inspired two biographical accounts of his successful leadership of the Bush troop surge in Iraq. Paula Broadwell and her collaborator, Washington Post metro editor Vernon Loeb, employ a similar format to examine his implementation of the Obama surge in Afghanistan. Embedded in Petraeus's Kabul headquarters, Broadwell was uniquely positioned to describe its byzantine political and...

The mother and father of the bride were glowing. After 38 years of marriage, retired Gen. David H. Petraeus and his wife, Holly, were presiding over their daughter's wedding last month in Berryville, Va., at the stunning Rosemont Manor. Anne Petraeus, 30, slim and beautiful, wore a white V-neck lace dress. Her groom was dressed in a dark suit and silver tie. The Petraeus family projected unity and love, but they were just days away from revelations of infidelity that would shatter the...

There is an unwritten code among the personal security details that protect people like the CIA director: What happens in the bubble stays in the bubble. "Yes, there is a code," said Howard Richards, who worked on the personal protective details of four CIA directors. "They want people around them to be people they can trust. " The assumption, Richards said, is that anyone who spends private time with the boss "would be vetted by the director's staff. " Never would he meet alone...

The Pentagon's inspector general has cleared the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan of wrongdoing following an investigation into whether he exchanged inappropriate e-mails with the same Tampa socialite involved in the scandal that prompted David H. Petraeus to resign as CIA director, U.S. officials said Tuesday. The FBI uncovered messages from Marine Gen. John R. Allen during its investigation of Petraeus last year. The tenor of some of the e-mails, which senior defense officials described as racy and flirtatious, prompted...

We woke up on the morning of Nov. 9 expecting the usual: for one of us, the tending to patients; for the other, the morning rush of packing lunches and getting the kids to school. We were planning a party for our daughter's seventh birthday that weekend. What ensued over the next 72 hours not only overtook all attempts for a happy family celebration but also made us prisoners in our own home. Our lives were radically upended by the story that emerged after David Petraeus resigned as...

At the start of the year, retired Gen. David H. Petraeus was flying high. He was the director of the CIA and was often mentioned as a prospective presidential candidate. He was the most recognized and heralded general of his generation, the subject of many adoring news stories and books. He had been the hero of the Iraq war, turning around an apparent disaster with the troop surge. And in 2010, he was called in to take over the Afghan war after Gen. Stanley McChrystal's dismissal.

Frederick and Kimberly Kagan, a husband-and-wife team of hawkish military analysts, put their jobs at influential Washington think tanks on hold for almost a year to work for Gen. David H. Petraeus when he was the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan. Provided desks, e-mail accounts and top-level security clearances in Kabul, they pored through classified intelligence reports, participated in senior-level strategy sessions and probed the assessments of field officers in order to...

Paula Broadwell, whose extramarital affair with retired Gen. David H. Petraeus led to his resignation as CIA director , will not be charged with cyber-stalking over e-mails sent to another woman, federal prosecutors said Tuesday. Broadwell sent harassing e-mails to a Tampa socialite whom she apparently believed was threatening her relationship with Petraeus. The Tampa woman, Jill Kelley , shared the e-mails with an FBI agent, and the agency later opened an...

The Pentagon announced Friday that it will examine whether its generals and admirals receive too many perks and said they should receive more ethics training earlier in their careers. The measures are a preliminary response to a directive issued last month by Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta, who ordered a review into misconduct by top brass in the wake of investigations involving several leaders , including the commander of the war in Afghanistan. On Friday, however, the Pentagon gave no indication that...

We woke up on the morning of Nov. 9 expecting the usual: for one of us, the tending to patients; for the other, the morning rush of packing lunches and getting the kids to school. We were planning a party for our daughter's seventh birthday that weekend. What ensued over the next 72 hours not only overtook all attempts for a happy family celebration but also made us prisoners in our own home. Our lives were radically upended by the story that emerged after David Petraeus resigned as CIA director.

The Pentagon announced Friday that it will examine whether its generals and admirals receive too many perks and said they should receive more ethics training earlier in their careers. The measures are a preliminary response to a directive issued last month by Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta, who ordered a review into misconduct by top brass in the wake of investigations involving several leaders , including the commander of the war in Afghanistan. On Friday, however, the Pentagon gave no...

As events have unfolded in what shall ever be known as " The Petraeus Affair ," one cannot escape noticing that the women in this sordid saga have been handed the short end of the shtick, as though the men are mere victims of ambitious, hormonally driven vixens. There's the so-called "socialite" in Tampa, Jill Kelley , who courted generals and exchanged at least hundreds of e-mails with our lead commander in Afghanistan, John Allen . And there's the biographer with toned arms, Paula Broadwell , who wore tight jeans and...

Regarding the Nov. 13 editorial "The spymaster's fall" : Gen. David H. Petraeus was never a good choice for CIA director, and now President Obama has a chance to strengthen civilian oversight of the intelligence process. The president's first choice for a national security adviser was a retired Marine general, and the last three intelligence czars have been retired general officers. All of these selections ignored the need for an independent civilian voice to counter the influence and worst-case analysis of military...