WASHINGTON — Paula Broadwell, whose affair with the nation's CIA director led to his resignation Friday, was the valedictorian of her high school class and homecoming queen, a fitness champion at West Point with a graduate degree from Harvard, and a model for a machine gun manufacturer, reported the New York Times Saturday. It may have been those qualities — and a string of achievements that began in her native North Dakota, where she was state student council president, an all-state basketball player and orchestra concertmistress — that drew the attention of David H. Petraeus, the nation's top spy and a four-star general, as the two spent hours together for a biography of Petraeus that Broadwell co-wrote. Broadwell was hardly shy about her interactions with Petraeus as she promoted her book. She had unusual access, she noted in promotional appearances, taping many of her interviews for her book while running six-minute miles with Petraeus in the thin mountain air of the Afghan capital. In a Twitter message this summer, she bragged about appearing on a panel at the Aspen Institute, a policy group for deep thinkers. “Heading 2 @AspenInstitute 4 the Security Forum tomorrow! Panel (media & terrorism) followed by a 1v1 run with Lance Armstrong,” she wrote. “Fired up!” She also used her Twitter account to denounce speculation in the Drudge Report that Petraeus would be picked as a running mate by Mitt Romney, the Republican candidate for president. Married with two children, she was described in a biography on the web site of Inspired Women Magazine as a high achiever since high school. – Agencies
