our fiscal strength as a country because it's going to grow the government so much. >> rose: and we continue with the democratic senator from new mexico, jeff bingaman. >> i think this president will be reelected partly on the basis of this accomplishment. and i think that many members of congress will find that they have strong support from their constituents as they learn more and more about the provisions in this legislation. >> rose: we continue with david grann whose last book was called "the lost city of z." we have now a collection of magazine articles in a book called "the devil and sherlock holmes: tales of murder, madness, and obsession." >> i don't think there is any question we can conclude that a man was executed based on utterly flawed evidence, even the prosecute knorr the case has now said there would not have probably been enough evidence to even convict him and he was

executed. my own feeling after spending a lot of time researching this, more than six months investigating the case, is that he was probably innocent. >> rose: health care reform and tales of murder, mad, and obsession when we continue. ♪ ♪ if you've had a coke in the last 20 years, ( screams ) you've had a hand in giving college scholarships... and support to thousands of our nation's... most promising students. ♪ ( coca-cola 5-note mnemonic )

captioning sponsored by rose communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. >> rose: america woke today to find a new health care system on the verge of becoming law. in a vote late last night, house democrats passed a health care reform bill by a margin of 219-212. in the final hours before passage, the debate on the house floor took on a sharp tone between party leaders. >> we have a moral obligation today, tonight, to make health care a right and not a privilege. there are those who have told us to start over. there are those who have told us to wait. they have told us to be patient. we cannot wait. we cannot be patient. >> my friends, we are fast

approaching a tipping point where more americans depend upon the federal government than upon themselves for their livelihoods. a point where we, the american people, trade in our commitment and our concern for our individual liberties in exchange for government benefits and dependencies. more to the point, madam speaker we have seen this movie before and we know how it ends. the european social welfare state promoted by this legislation is not sustainable. this is not who we are and it is not who we should become. >> americans will look back on this day on one which is we charactered our commitment to our nation's founders for a commitment to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. as our colleague john lewis has said, we may not have chosen the time, but the time has chosen

us. >> we stand here amidst the wreckage of what was once the respect and honor that this house was held in by our fellow citizens. and we all know why it is so. we have failed to listen to americans and we have failed to reflect the will of our constituents. shame on each and every one of you who substitute your will and your desires above those of your fellow countrymen. >> rose: no republicans voted for the bill which will insure over 30 million americans at a cost of nearly one trillion dollars over the next ten years. president obama immediately praised the congress after the vote. >> at a time when the pundits said it was no longer possible we rose above the weight of our politics. we pushed back on the undue influence of special interests. we didn't give in to mistrust or to cynicism or to fear.

instead we proved that we are still a people capable of doing big things and tackling our biggest challenges. this isn't radical reform but it is major reform. this legislation will not fix everything that ails our health care system, but it moves us decisivefully the right direction. this is what change looks like. >> rose: the president is now expected to sign the bill into law tomorrow. joining me now from washington, senator judd gregg. he will vote on democratic fixs to the reform bill that will soon come before the senate. i am pleased to have him back on this program. welcome. >> thank you, charlie. it's great to be back. >> rose: tell me what you think the historical moment we are at is. define it and its implications. >> i think it's at three different levels. first, i think we've fundamentally seen a change in the way that the constitutional process works. we're now seeing a senate that

is basically being operated like the house of representatives, which is unfortunate, in my opinion, where issues come to the floor and rather than having open and fairly lengthy debate with lots of amendments, it's structured in a very dogmatic way in the sense that basically amendments aren't allowed or if they are allowed they're very limited. and that changes the purpose of the constitutional structure. the senate was supposed to be the place-- as washington said-- from which the hot coffee is poured from the cup into the saucer. and the saucer is now been thrown out the window. the second big thing that i think is happening here is that the government is growing very dramatically. and the cost of the government is growing dramatically. we're going to go from a government that historically has been 20% of g.d.p. to a government that is now going to exceed 25%, 27% of g.d.p. those are big numbers. and it's going to be very hard

to pay for that government and i think in the end it's probably going to have-to-weaken our country to have a government that large because we'll have to finance that government through massive increases in taxes or potentially inflation is which is the cruelest tax of all. thirdly, obviously, the president has a big win. that's pretty historical. he put his whole presidency on the line and he has a big win. i happen to think it's a win that pushes our government regrettably too far left and moves us down the road toward a european type of government but it can't be denied this is a big win. >> rose: do you think that's the government he prefers? that kind of government? a european style social democracy? >> absolutely. i mean, not only did... is the health care bill passed but you know they threw the baggage on this train of nationalizing the entire student loan industry. i mean, the entire student loan industry more or less under the radar has been nationalize sod that 19 million students who get their loans today from private banks are going to get them from the federal government as a result of that legislation being

put on this bill. and then, of course, you have to movement in the area of financial reform. you have to movement in the area of the automobile. so there's no questions this a, as you said, a european approach which basically believes in more of a social democracy type of approach where the entrepreneurship that has been the core of the american value system in my opinion, which has caused the creativity and the energy for our nation is really dampened down by a government that's awfully big and intrusive. >> rose: so the defining battle that this president will face for the remainder of his first term and four years of a second term if he gets it wlab? >> well, i think it's just how far to the left we go. >> rose: so therefore you think what will happen in 2010 and 2012? >> i suspect the american people will want a divided government again. i think they're going to want the checks and balances that come from having the white house in one hand and at least one house of the congress in the other party's hands.

i don't think they like to see this lurching that is occurring in this case to the left and this massive increase in government because they intuitively understand. the american people have tremendous common sense. it's an intuitive common sense. they understand intuitively that if this government gets as large as it's going to get under this administration's proposals, their kids aren't going to be able to afford it. they're going to have a different quality of life. standard of live willing go down. >> rose: let me understand this, and maybe there's no distinction. this president wants a government that will stifle creativity. he wants a government that will not recognize entrepreneurial spirit? he wants a government that is not in the great tradition of respecting individuals in the great scheme of things? >> well, i guess i end to feel they go hand in hand. if you explode the debt-- and this bill in my opinion will inevitably end up exploding the debt-- then you basically have to do a couple things to address that. either raise taxes dramatically

or devalue the currency through inflation which inherently reduces the productivity of a nation and do significantly dampen down entrepreneurialism. the problem here... you know, at the core of this problem in this bill, if you want to look at my concerns, it is that they're reducing medicare spending by a trillion dollars when it's fully implemented over the first ten years plus they're throwing on top of it this 3.8% tax, insurance tax on passive income. all those dollars which if you're going to take them should have gone to make medicare more solvent-- because we know medicare is our biggest problem, it's got $38 trillion unfunded liability-- all those dollars are being taken and moved across the ledger to fund a brand new major entitlement and to massively expand an already existing entitlement. and the practical affect of that is that you're basically doubling down on your fiscal problems. you're growing the government with new entitlement which is you know you'll never be able to

fully afford and you're taking the resources that you should use to make medicare more solvent and you're spending it. >> rose: then the argument they make, obviously, is that they're making medicare more efficient and they're cutting a lot of abuse. n that system and that therefore it will provide better care at less cost. >> well, that's... that's obviously not going to work. i mean, that's an argument i could make if you're willing to buy a bridge in brooklyn. >> rose: why is it obviously not true? >> because we know in the medicare system they're tracking basically the medicaid experience where they're pushing down so hard on the provider groups, the doctors and the hospitals, that inevitably providers stop seeing patients and that gives medicare beneficiaries less choice and they are moving towards a system which will basically be very top-down controlled in the area of what type of care you can get by wiping out, for example, your ability to get medicare advantage insurance.

>> rose: is it possible and what is the likely candidate if you were making assumptions that are wrong and that people are not going to find that their own health care has changed, that people are not going to feel that this system... new system doesn't work and this they're going to find out that they like it better when insurance companies, say, are treated differently. >> well, i don't think anybody has any debate with the insurance company treatment here. in fact, my bill, bill from other members on our side of the aisle all had the same treatments, the pre-existing condition. >> rose: right, right. >> there's no argument over that. that's a given. that's what good health care reform should do. the debate is more over how health care's delivered and who pays for it and how the... how much it's going to cost and how many new major entitlements you create. you know, i just can't accept the argument-- and i think common sense tells you the argument doesn't works that if you take a trillion dollars out of medicare to set up a new entitlement program for people

who aren't on medicare, medicare beneficiaries are going to be affected pretty significantly in their type of health care. and there's a number of other things like that. for example, if you say to small employers "you must buy health insurance for your employees or you pay a penalty of $650 or something per employee or maybe it's 2k34rr,000, i've forgotten which the number. is most people are going to say, hey, the deal is to fay penalty and let the government worry about the people i used to ensure. so people lose the insurance they have, they end up on this exchange and who knows where they can buy as good insurance as they had with their employer. i think you'll see a lot of small employers changing the insurance coverage as a result of this bill. i happen to believe this bill will have a very negative impact on innovation. i mean, inherently the way you create innovation is you get people to invest. well, who's going to invest dollars? dollars are fun fungable. are you going to put your money

in into a medical innovation investment where you have long lead time and you don't know what will happen to the medical industry because of the significant intrusion of the government? i think you're probably going to have second thoughts about that. >> rose: you're worried about the pfizers of our time? >> i am worried about capital being available for creative activity in the health care industry. i... capital tends to go where it gets the best return. if you're investing capital, are you really going to invest in an industry that's headed towards some sort of very heavy controls from the federal government? i doubt it. or if you are it's going to be very high premium to get that investment. >> rose: unless you find more innovative ways to do it. do you worry also-- and this is the reason i wanted you on the this program today-- are you worried about america becoming less of a xetive? that our whole structure and system is going to be less competitive in a world-- stealing tom friedman's ideas that is more and more flat? >> well, i don't think there's any question about that. that worries me as much as anything. i mean, the simple fact is that

as you expand... i've said this a couple times in a couple different ways, maybe not as well as i should have. as you expand the size of government... if you take government from 20% of your economy to 28% of your economy, you inevitably reduce the productivity and competitiveness of your economy. because government does not create economic activity that produces wealth. >> rose: people argue the following as well, as you know better than i do. that american competitiveness has to do with its educational system, with its immigration policy, a whole range of things as well as how much government... the level of government penetration in a particular sector. >> well, there's no question about that. absolutely no question. our immigration policy is or risk in the area of competitiveness. we should be going around the world and saying to the smart people in the world who want to come to the united states "come! create jobs here!" bly we leaving them in china and india where they're creating jobs in bring them to the united states. and in the area of education, we

know our educational system needs significant more improvement. but is that... what you were talking about here is the growth of the federal government which is a function, education at the federal level is really a minor part of our budgets. >> rose: i was talking in a larger way about america's future. >> well, in america's future is at risk. it's definite at risk because we are becoming less competitive in a competitive world. there are a lot of people there who have the capacity to be innovative and who have the capacity to create the type of products that are going to be competing with us and we've got to be able to be better than they are. and our strength, of course, has to always be entrepreneurship, risk taking and value-added ideas. in other words, being smarter than other people. >> rose: and all those things are at risk coming out of what you just witnessed with this health care bill in your judgment? >> well, in my judgment we're moving down a path towards, as i said earlier, europeanization of

our nation. and our great uniqueness, what surrounds american exceptionalism, what really drives it is that entrepreneurial individualistic spirit which goes out and takes a risk when nobody else is willing to do it or comes up with an idea that nobody else comes up with and that all gets dampened down the larger and more intrusive government becomes, especially you follow a european model. >> rose: do you think this is what happened to the tea party? that they grabbed on to this idea that you're now expressing and said "stop"? >> i can't speak for the tea party, charlie. >> rose: (laughs) >> i have to be honest with you. i have not kept up with their thought process. >> rose: (laughs) >> i thought you might take that chance, express an idea. here's another quote from you. this was before you declined being secretary of commerce. you described what the president had done as an economic tour de force in his presentation of ideas for the economy.

>> yes. and, in fact, i was and remain... i was very supportive and remain rather supportive... quite supportive of what they have done in the area of financial reform in order try to stabilize the financial industry of this country. you know, he got dealt some pretty tough cards on the issue of financial reform. and there was no question we were on precipice of a catastrophic event in the financial industry which would have affected everybody on main street. you know, people are a little less sensitive to it than they might have been but believe me, if the banking system had imploded-- which it would have had secretary paulson, chairman bernanke and secretary geithner with the president's strong support not stepped in and taken some very tough and very unpopular decisions we would have been in deep trouble and i've always given him accolades for that and i continue to. >> rose: that was government intervention you liked.

>> it was necessary. you know, it was totally against my strain as a conservative, but i was the guy who negotiated for the republican senators and we realized that we were in a totally unique situation. we had never seen anything like this before as a nation. even during the depression i'm not sure that this type of an event had... could have been characterized because the financial industry was so large that we were dealing with here. and we just had to think outside the box in order to save this country and save the fiscal situation of this country and really of the world. >> rose: here's what the president said. "every once in a while a moment comes where you have a chance to vindicate all those best hopes that you had about yourself, about this country, where you have a chance to make good on those promises that you made and this is the time to make true on the promise. we are not bound to win but we are bound to be true. we are not bound to succeed, but we are bound to let whatever light we have shine." in fact, that comes from abraham lincoln. but go ahead. >> i thought it came from ronald reagan, but i liked it. >> rose: (laughs)

>> it may have come from ronald reagan but maybe reagan took it from lincoln. and lincoln took it from jefferson. yoon. >> probably. >> rose: but you like that idea. >> no question. that's why you get in this business. that's why you run for public office. and that's why you want to be in government is you want to do something that you think is going to be extraordinarily good for your nation. everybody believes that and i... the president certainly follows that path. he wants to do what he thinks is going to be very positive for the nation. it's just a deep philosophical difference as to whether we're veering off on to a path that may be so good. >> rose: but what are you going to do? >> when? (laughs) >> rose: (laughs) i mean, how many... >> for the next few months i'm going to work very hard to try to make sure that we pass good legislation on some issues that are still pending. >> okay. but health care is a done deal now. we'll see health care. and you think the country will live to regret it is your bottom line? >> well, "live to regret" is a

very strong term. but i do think it's going to fundamentally harm our capacity to see and pass on to our children a better nation and a stronger nation because it's going to have such a distinct impact and negative impact on our fiscal strength as a country because it's going to grow the government so much. and i genuinely believe-- and this is open, obviously, for debate-- that there's going to be a diminution of the quality of health care in the this country as the government becomes much more dominant in those 170 million people who presently have private insurance lives. >> rose: always good to have you on this program, i thank you for coming. >> thank you, charlie. snud judd gregg, republican senator from new hampshire. back in a moment. stay with us. >> rose: we continue our conversation about the passage of health care reform with

senator jeff bingaman, democrat of new mexico. he was a member of the senate finance committee so-lled gang of six that tried to draft a bipartisan bill last year. i am pleased to welcome him backing to this program. thank you, senator, for coming. >> nice to be here. thank you. >> rose: so tell me individually you, how do you feel about the way things are going? >> well, i'm very glad to see this bill become law. the president will sign it tomorrow. i think that's a great day for the country. it will move us toward solving a lot of the health care delivery system problems that have plagued our country for many years. it will i think help us keep down the growth in the cost of health care. i think it will expand coverage and i think it will improve the quality of care. >> rose: senator judd gregg was just with us, as you may know, you may have seen him on the way out, and was arguing two points, one, that america couldn't

afford this and, b, that it suggests that there is on the part of this president a kind of social democratic view of government's place in society. >> well, on the issue of whether we can afford it, i think the best evidence we have for what this is going to mean to the country's finances going forward is that... is what we hear from the congressional budget office. they say it clearly will help us to reduce the deficit in the years going forward. it will help us to reduce the growth and the cost of health care. i think what people don't realize is that we're going to spend... if this had not become law, we would still be spending about $30 trillion in the next ten years on health care in this country. and so if you can just moderate the growth in the cost a little bit, you can save a lot of money

and congressional budget office says, in fact, we will be saving a substantial amount of money. >> rose: some writers are speculating today that what has happened in health care and what the president decided to be bolder and this this suggests in a sense a new direction for this president in terms of what he's prepared to do for his positions and that he's going to be less centrist. >> well, i think the president deserves enormous credit for getting this legislation enacted. but the truth is he tried every way he could think of to involve the republicans in a serious way and helping to come up with a health care reform proposal. i was part of this group of six-- three democrats, three republicans in the finance committee-- and all of us in that group received numerous phone calls from the president, visited with the president in the oval office.

he went the extra mile to try to involve republicans to take their suggestions. i believe, unfortunately, republican leadership had decided early the process they were not going to be cooperative they were not going to help the president enact health care reform. and when that became clear to the president, i think he did what he had to do, and that is pass it with democratic votes. >> rose: in other words, you think republicans only wanted to be an obstacle and prevent him from getting health care reform rather than wanting to build their own proposal for health care reform? >> yeah. i don't think that the leadership, the republican leadership? either the house or senate seriously pursued a development of alternatives to what the president had put forward or seriously engaged in trying to come up with a bipartisan bill. i think there are a few senators who did. there may have been a few in the house who did at some early

stage, but i think they were quickly disabused of the idea that this was going to be something that the party would condone them going along and developing. >> rose: so what is this going to do to partisanship? not bipartisanship but partisanship? >> well, i hope that this sends a strong signal that partisanship is not the solution. the american people want us to work in a bipartisan basis but i believe that this bill was partisan because republicans refused to engage with the president and with the democrats in developing the legislation. so that... i think the solution that i see going forward on other bills and other subjects is to develop a better ability to work across the party lines. i hope we can. we're doing that in the energy area. >> rose: so you're suggesting

that the consequences of health care reform may be more bipartisanship, more working together rather than less? >> well, i'm not sure what the short-term consequences will be because everybody's focused on the fall election and it seems like some in the republican side think that there's some political advantage to them in running against this legislation campaigning for repeal of it. so i think short term it's hard to predict what will happen. but over the long haul i think that they should conclude that working with the democrats will give them much more opportunity to influence the outcome. >> rose: do you think it could set the president on some kind of roll that other things, both in terms of how he's viewed abroad as well as domestically could be a turning point? >> well, i think anybody who would sell the president short

at this point would have to be not paying attention to what's happened in health care. he has demonstrated that he was able to do what previous presidents had not been able to do and for that he deserves enormous credit. >> is one lesson of this that that if the president seized control of this earlier and made sure his narrative was the dominant narrative and the center of the debate that this would not have been as hard and as painful and as difficult. >> rose: well, i'm sure... >> well i'm sure thereby books written about that subject. i guess my suggest that is if we had had agreement between the white house and the congress on the outlines of what we wanted to do and not just the outline but a lot of the detail as well earlier in the process we probably could have done this more quickly. the public did not enjoy watching the spectacle. >> rose: so meaning that the president shouldn't... rather

than... he lean too hard... he allowed... he gave too much early responsibility to the senate finance committee and to the house leadership? >> well, i think he gave us a lot of discretion in how we proceeded and i think... you know, this has resulted in a success so... >> rose: (laughs) yes, exactly. >> i am loathe to criticize. all previous efforts resulted in failure. this resulted in a success. so i think people sitting around second guessing what he should have done should notice that he succeeded. >> rose: the debate now is that a lot of people are going to look at this and say within the time frame of the congressional elections will there be changes that people will see therefore they'll get to know the bill, like it better, and may change what the anticipated vote might be? >> well, there are some things which will take effect right away and those are beneficial to

a lot of people. but i think what's likely to change perceptions of this is just the process of people becoming better informed about all of the detail of this legislation. this was worked over. this is not just slapped together legislation. i don't know of any legislation i've been involved in the 27 years i've been in the senate where there was more effort to try to get it right by more staff and more members of congress really getting involved. so i think that as people become better informed, they will see that there are genuine benefits to the country, to themselves as individuals from the legislation that's been enacted. >> rose: would you say that this is this has been the most important moment in your own senatorial career and this is why you came to the senate to be able to enact legislation that has historic possibilities?

>> well, i think as far as domestic social legislation slags, this is probably the most significant domestic legislation i have that seen enacted in the 27 years i've been here. i think obviously we've done a lot of things dealing with war and peace and declaring war and those kinds of things where i think important votes were cast. but this was a very significant piece of legislation. it's going to change the health care delivery system of the country in major and very beneficial ways. >> rose: and may change a presidency. >> i think this president will be reelected partly on the basis of this accomplishment. and i think that many members of congress will find that they have strong support from their constituents as they learn more

and more about the provisions in this legislation. >> rose: senator bingaman, thank you very much for joining us. as always, a pleasure. >> thank you. >> rose: jeff bingaman from new mexico. back in a moment. stay with us. >> rose: david grann is here. since joining the "new yorker" mag snooen 2003, he has written some of the magazine's most memorable articles. his most recent piece sparked renewed debate over the death penalty published in october "trial by fire" questioned the evidence used to execute a texas man for arson. grann is also the author of "the lost city of z" a best-selling biographer of the british explorer percy fossett. his next book is a collection of some of his best magazine articles. it's called "the devil and sherlock holmes: tales of murder, madness, and obsession." so i'm pleased to have david grann back at this table.

welcome. >> thanks for having me here. >> rose: is this your title? >> this was my title although i had help from the a colleague at the "new yorker." >> rose: (laughs) what colleague was that? >> tad friend. >> rose: (laughs) so why did you choose "the devil and sherlock holmes"? because you were a certain sherlock holmes as writer as he was as... >> very much so. and all of these stories in many ways involve people who are thrust into the role of being sleuths. who are trying in some way to make sense of their lives. you have a story about a con man who suddenly suspect he is may be being conned. off story of a schoolteacher who investigates the case of a man about to be executed for a fire and she believe he is may be innocent. i have a story of scientists who are tying to unravel the mystery of this giant squid that's almost semimythological with tent cals 30 feet long and eyes the size of human heads. so all of these stories involve an element of detective work. and i suppose in my own efforts to try to tell their stories

they involve efforts of detective work. >> rose: so let's talk about "trial by fire." walk me through the process that david grann gets involved. >> that story began almost just with a simple question. and most of these story i don't know much about the subjects before i begin them. and that began with a simple question. i wondered had there ever been anyone in the united states who was innocent who had been executed. had there ever been a case of irrefutable evidence? >> rose: my assumption is a number of them. >> and even though-- especially d.n.a.-- there's been cases of many people exonerated from death row... >> rose: right. so before d.n.a. somebody... if they're finding out that a bunch of them couldn't have done it because of d.n.a. evidence, before we had d.n.a. evidence, you would assume. >> right. right. and i think there is that assumption and yet there had not been a case that was considered irrefutable, at least in the modern era.

and i began to look into various cases and eventually began to look in the willingham case. and the more i looked into it... when i first began, actually, i thought he had to be guilty. i called his defense attorney and his own defense attorney said "yes, he definitely did it." i said well, if his own defense attorney thinks he did it he has to have done it. >> rose: (laughs) yes. >> and like most of these stories you go on a journey. and that story was essentially about a man named cameron todd willingham, a guy who was a high school dropout who was convicted of setting a fire that killed his three children. and what happened was arson investigators had gone into his house and identified what they believed were clear indicators of arson. they found these pour patterns and puddle configurations on the floor. they found the spider web like pattern in the glass called craze glass which they believed was from intense heating from a liquid accelerant being poured. these pour patterns were also

the product of a liquid accelerant. the problem is-- and what i discovered during the research-- is that all these indicators of arson were based largely on folklore. they were not necessarily based on science. and arson investigation for many years was really based on this wisdom that had been passed down that had not been scientifically tested. so for example this crazed glass is supposed to be an indicator of arson. science has shown it has nothing to do with a liquid accelerant, it these do with rapid cooling when the firemen show up and they shoot cold water on the glass it causes this spider web pattern. >> rose: right. >> these pour paddles and puddle configurations on the floor, they say "that has to be a sign of arson." it can simply be a natural by-product of a fire. and so all these indicators have now been examined by some of the leading forensic scientists and they have all concluded that there is no scientific basis for-to-conclude that that fire was intentionally set.

>> rose: therefore? >> well, i think without question, i don't think there is any question we can conclude that a man was executed based on utterly flawed evidence. even the prosecutor in the case has now said there would not have probably been enough evidence to even convict him, and he was executed. my own feeling after spending a lot of time researching this, more than six months investigating the case is that he was probably innocent. and i think most of the evidence points in that direction. >> rose: and so what did he say and he was going through this process of being convicted not only of arson and murder but of his own children. >> well, one of the interesting things was is i had a subject in this case who was no longer living. so what do you do? how do you find out what they think? >> rose: exactly. >> how do you get into their internal thought? so what i did was i was able to track down through people he knew all his correspondence. they kept his correspondence.

i was able to obtain copies of his prison diarys where he kept a cataloging of his internal emotions as he went through this process. and one of the interesting things is you see a guy who was a rough guy, was not somebody who ever... you ever would have wanted to have over. he hit his wife, he drank, he sniffed glue as a kid. he was a rough-and-tumble character yet you notice in these letters when he's put into this situation, his letters are very introspective. and... and almost kafkaesque. you really... here's a guy... >> rose: the horror of it all. >> the horror of it all. he cannot understand how he is in this predicament and his letters and diaries show a man who is really descending into... >> rose: madness? >> utter despair and at times emotionally coming undone. >> rose: knowing that he didn't do it but he's about to die because no one believes him. >> no one believes him. >> rose: partly because of

his... >> he's poor. he never had good lawyering. his lawyers believed he did it. there was one woman who intersected in this story, a schoolteacher, a former schoolteacher who got to know willingham. and began to look into the case and started to really question some of the evidence and really champions the case. and this friendship is really a big part of this story. and i think for him it really was something that helped save him. it really gave him something beyond... >> rose: so he found something he cared for. >> and someone who cared for him. >> rose: right. >> and championed his case. he was someone, unlike a lot of these cases, with some death penalty cases, he didn't get any attention. he went to his death essentially anonymous. >> rose: no people outside the gates or anything? >> no, but what's tragic about his case, and i think this is really important, is that the case illuminates a lot of flaws and a lot of systemic flaws, not

just flaws in thearson evidence and the scientific testimony, there was a jailhouse informant, for example, in the case. and this is the real problem with these cases. i tracked down the jailhouse informant and he was so mentally unstable. he was trembling like i've never seen anyone tremble and he add one point essentially said to me when does the statute of limitations expire on perjury? because he had committed perjury and when did the statute of limitations expire? and when i told that i mean willingham had been executed in part based on his testimony he looked at me and he said "nothing can save me now." yet his testimony went into trial and was used to convict him. and then the other even larger problem was just before he was about to be executed an arson... top arson investigator had looked at this case, had written up a report and said there is no scientific basis, not a single sled of scientific evidence to conclude that this fire was intentionally said set.

by all impressions he believed it was just an accident. it was probably electrical wiring or a space heater. this evidence went to a clemency board and it went to the governor and it didn't give them pause and he still went to his execution. >> rose: who was the governor? >> governor perry of texas. >> rose: running for reelection. >> running for reelection. >> rose: have you ever thought about... you're doing just fine without my advice. >> (laughs) >> rose: but these... the power of these interviews and the power of your inquiry and the power of your process, you know, you ought to walk around now a camera and record all this. or do you think it would be an impediment to what you do? a barrier to finding out what the you find out when you're only doing it with a... >> with a pen. i think part of my technique-- and i don't think i have so many great attributes-- but i think my greatest attribute is i end

to disappear on these assignments and i really spend a lot of time with people and i'm fairly unassuming and i disappear. so in a weird way the less accoutrements, the less i'm a presence, the more i see people as they really and in their actions and can document them. >> rose: and they become comfortable with you. >> they become comfortable and really i want them to be as they are as much as possible. i want them as much as possible to forget that i'm there. so, for example, in the case of the giant squid hunter. >> rose: (laughs) right. >> here is this man that's obsessed with finding this elusive creature and i end up going out in almost a cyclone with him. >> rose: (laughs) >> chasing this creature. and he actually puts me to work because he didn't have much of a crew. so i spent the nights actually pulling... as you can tell, i'm not in great shape. and i spent hours with this guy searching for giant squid. i became part of his crew but i essentially disappear. but i got to see him as he was and there was a moment in that story where he had spent his

life trying to capture a baby giant squid. no one had ever captured a giant. he wanted to capture a baby and grow in the activity and there came a moment in the middle of the night where he thought he caught it and we looked at it and we were putting in the a special container and then we lost it and it slipped away and i watched his expression. i mean, the sense of he had had it and then it was gone almost like an illusion and just the sense of... also a sense of just despair and pathos that he experienced at being so close and then losing it and i was able to just witness it. had i just been there interviewing him after the fact it would have been totally different. it was that i was there and witnessed it. >> rose: you have said reporting like detective work, is a process of elimination. it requires that you gather and probe innumerable versions of the story until-- to borrow a phrase from cher lomb holmes--

the one which remains must be the truth. >> and i think that's true. i think that's true. the processes we use are very similar. and i think the difference, though, is... and the difference with all these stories that even though we all try, like sherlock holmes, including myself, to make sense of these stories, none of us are like sherlock holmes. he's superhuman, he can see through everything. the story always makes sense in the end and the characters in this story are fallible. they can observe but they don't necessarily see. and they struggle to make sense of it. and part of that messiness of life is what also drew me to these stories. they're not fairy tales like sherlock holmes. >> rose: but... and when it comes down to putting it on paper... >> never easy. (laughs) >> rose: (laughs) that was going to be my question. i mean, is two-thirds of it already done and so therefore, you know, you've got your story, you've got your point of view, you've... all you've got to do

is just, you know, let it flow right out of you. (laughs) >> it never quite flows. >> rose: stop and go to sleep, wake up and let it flow again. >> i am one of these people who make myself everyday sit for a good chunk of the day at that computer and often it... you know, there will only be a couple words that come out. but i don't let myself go. but i will say this. i do feel like these are great stories and if i can get the story, if i can get characters and i can get the narrative then when i get back to my computer it will be okay. it will tell itself. and i really see my job... >> rose: that's my point. that's actually question i was asking. >> and i try in these stories as much as possible to get out of the way. i don't want to be the central figure in these stories. i'm only there to take you through them. but the stories are what are

powerful and the characters i'm narrating. >> rose: there a common link between all of them in terms of the object they're chasing? >> no, they're very different. what unites them kind of a sense of curiosity and wonder. and there's another quote from her have lock holmes i use which says life is inphi netly stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent. i think all these stories fit that template. >> much more. >> i don't think you could ever... there's a story about... >> rose: even the best of playwrights, the best of... without naming names. >> these characters and stories are pretty remarkable. >> rose: they are good. is "trial by fire" your favorite? >> i wouldn't say... >> rose: the squid? >> i would say there's a story in there... i think "trial by fire" is the most morally important story so i'm very proud of that. there's a story in there there which i think a remarkable story that captures the themes of the book and that's a story about the world's greatest sherlock holmes scholar-- i don't know

where the title came from-- who is found dead. he's found garretted in mysterious circumstances. nobody knows if he was hurted or was it suicide and all these amateur sleuths around the world who knew they existed? they take up this case which they think is greater than anything that conan doyle had ever invented and try to solve this case about what happened to their world's greatest sherlock holmes scholar and that story captures a lot of the themes, best to mystery, the sense of intrigue, the obsession and also in that case obsession becomes tinged with madness. >> rose: there's a couple more i want to talk about. that one is called "mysterious circumstances." what's the one about the french con man? >> the chameleon. >> the chameleon. and there's one. could you instrent chameleon? >> rose: no! tishgs i the chameleon is this french imposter. what he does is he doesn't... he always impersonates children. even when he's in his 30s and

balding he impersonates a 15-year-old, 14-year-old boy and gets taken into orphanages or families and they believe he is legitimate and there's no evidence that he's a pedophile. he never steals anything. he seems to do it for emotional profit. he says he wants to be part of these families. but the thing is so so strange about that story is that at one point and very unset slg that at one point he was in trouble in the law in spain and he always invented characters, but at one point he stole the identity of a missing american boy from texas named nicholas barkley who was 13 years old. and the family from texas comes over, takes him, this french guy with a french somewhat accent, he did speak english but had an accent. gets some hair color which he dyes, comes over and lives in the united states and lives with this family for five months with the family claiming that they believe he is their missing son

or brother and at a certain point in that story the con man, the imposter, the chameleon named frederick bower dan, begins to wonder if he is the one who is being conned and perhaps he's not such a great imposter and that at least one member of the family may actual have been implicated and know about what really happened to the missing nicholas barkley. and so a lot of these stories you kind of think one thing and you end up in a different place. >> rose: finally tell me about ricky henderson. >> ricky henderson. you asked me one of my favorites. i would say that was my favorite assignment because ricky henderson, 46 years old, the greatest baseball stealer ever, one of the greatest leadoff hitters. just a great nuisance, great chaos on the field. was determined, obsessed, with making it back to the majors he

refused to accept his own mortality. this story is interesting because it doesn't fit the conventions of some of the other mysteries, yet he's trying to unravel his own riddle and his own riddle of his mortality. he even says to me "the pieces of the puzzle, i'm trying to figure them all out." but he wasn't even playing in the minor leagues. here was one of the greatest players ever playing in the golden baseball league with the surf dogs and i got to sit in the dugout with him. >> rose: and he had stories to tell. >> oh, boy, did he. and at one point i watched him teach young kids how he stole a base. >> rose: what was the secret? >> you know what it was? a fearlessness. and i think that was part of the reason, a daringness, a certain go centristty, that he could take it on himself, change the nature of the game and it was

part of that which could get him trapped in the situation. because he still thought hekdz outit with everyone one more time and make it back to the majors. >> rose: i once asked sugar ray leonard why do you do it? he was coming back, he was making a comeback. he's made a lot of money. he'd done really well. young, good looking and he had had community people who not only respected him but... i said why are you doing this? you may be subject to embarrassment, ridicule, you may be subject to failure. and he said to me "it's what i do." ricky henderson played baseball, he stole bases. that's what he did. >> that's what he did. ricky henderson had a lot of money and houses. and his kids would say ricky, enough, are you going to come home now? he couldn't let go.

at one point he said to me at the end, he said "i seem tired." and he always talked in the third person. and he says "i don't know if ricky can stop." (laughter) >> rose: that's great! that's great. what would de gaulle do? (laughter) david grann, "the devil and sherlock holmes: tales of murder, madness, and obsession." what a pleasure. >> it was my pleasure. thanks a lot for having me, charlie. great seeing you, too. >> rose: stay tuned this week for episode six of the charlie rose brain series. this month's installment takes a look at the aging brain. we'll talk about memory loss, alzehimer's disease and biological basis of wisdom and maturity. here's a look at our program airing wednesday evening. >> even as a young person the way our memory system works is that we are always going for the gist. we don't care so much about the

details. thankfully we don't remember everything. >> that's very good, yes. >> so that makes it possible. and older people, that's something they can do. >> that might be wisdom. >> they're getting to the gist. >> we certainly feel as though we have more wisdom, don't we? (laughter) >> speak for yourself, john! >> there is another point that emerges from this which is very encouraging. first of all, memory research is really sort of a little bit more than half a century old. so it's a relatively new discipline science. we've learned an enormous amount from people sitting around this table but what's also interesting is we have a... i'm tempted to say profound understanding of early on set alzehimer's disease which probably to some degree spreads to late onset alzehimer's disease and we have been working-- not myself, but the pharmaceutical industry, scientists, to try to develop therapeutic approaches to it. at the moment, drugs are at best

modestly effective. but there's every reason to believe-- although this is a slow process-- that we will ultimately the biological understanding we have come up with things that are really useful therapeutically. ♪

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