uses its final time-out. dan: here's the one look that we looked at. let's concentrate on that right toe of jacoby jones. see, right there, i thought it contacted the ground. from that angle there, i sure thought that his right foot touched the turf. greg: heck of an effort by jacoby jones. just didn't work. those of you expecting to see "60 minutes," you're watching the nfl on cbs. our game between houston and baltimore. greg gumbel along with dan dierdorf and the rest of our cbs sports crew. "60 minutes" will be seen in its entirety immediately following this game except on the west coast. baltimore leads it 26-14 with under 3:30 to play. this is rice. inside the 25 to the 23. dan: this was a game very much

being contested and until the last drive by the baltimore ravens. the last time they had the ballings they went down the field. ray rice, a couple of huge plays, anquan boldin, a big catch and they did their best to try to it this away. now with a 12-point lead. this has been a very physical game. both quarterbacks have been bounced around. greg: flacco now with a third and 8. going to give it to rice. a little or no gain on the play. and that will bring out billy cundiff once again. ray rice, 23 carries, 101 yards on the season. and now, cundiff comes up short of the field. dan: when you look at the play clock and the game clock, and

they are almost identical. greg: we'll get to the two-minute warning just as time runs down. dan: the play clock is going to expire about a 10th of a second before. [laughter] greg: oh you malt ma tigs you! dan: but that doesn't count, i don't believe. greg: two moneys to play in ---minutes to play in baltimore. ♪ $5 ♪ $5 footlong [ male announcer ] october's now anytober! any regular footlong is a $5 footlong! startin' at 7am! subway. eat fresh. if you're the adventurous type like me, then get in on the subway taste for adventure for a chance to win epic trips and exclusive access to uncharted 3. get your code on 30-ounce drinks today. subway. where winners eat. ow.

we are now printing on the back sides of used paper and we switched to fedex cause a lot of their packaging contains recycled materials. tell them what else fedex does. well we're now using more electric trucks and lower emission planes. we even offer a reusable envelope. now, can't we at least print on the back sides of used paper? what's the executive compensation list...? [ male announcer ] sustainable solutions. fedex. solutions that matter. mike, thanks for doing that discount double check. you saved us hundreds. what was that? the discount double check? it's when we comb through your policies and make sure that you're getting all the discounts you deserve. no, i get that part, but you guys are doing my move. the discount double check move? that's my touchdown dance. so you're a dancer? no, i'm a quarterback. oh, a quarterback. mrr. i'm a robot. mm, mm. ee, er, ee, er. get out of here. [ male announcer ] aaron rodgers got his. how about you? rodgers! discount double check! [ male announcer ] get to a better state. state farm.

[the captioning on this program is provided as an independent service of the national captioning institute, inc., which is solely responsible for the accurate and complete transcription of the program content. cbs, its parent and affiliated companies, and their respective agents and divisions are not responsible for the accuracy or completeness of any transcription or for any errors in transcription.] [captioning made possible by cbs sports, a division of cbs cbs sports, a division of cbs broadcasting, inc.] greg: this will be from 40 yards out. cundiff looking to tie the team

record held by matt stover and cundiff himself with five field goals made in a single game. and it's good. so with 1:55 to play, baltimore extends its lead to 29-14. want to remind you tonight begins with scott pell li's eye-opening record on afghanistan on "60 minutes," followed by a new "amazing race," "the good wife," and "c.s.i.: miami" only on cbs. dan: well, greg, the texans' road trip continues as they go to tennessee next weekend. so another hostile environment in nashville as this team that just doesn't do very well on the road has to try to somehow beat a good team on the road.

greg: and every time they think and every tame the fans think they've turned the corner, they come right back to that same corner. this is mcmahons deep. -- mcmanis deep. cundiff will do a retee. and he has made it a habit of driving it over through and beyond the end line of the end zone. dan: on question of the kickoff, does the fan going to catch that? i know we moved it up five yards, but wow.

greg: this will not be returned either. seventh touchback, courtesy of billy cundiff today. dan: you see, they're at tennessee next week, and then back home for jacksonville and cleveland, and then go to tampa bay before they get their bye on november 20th. so this is, you know, this is a football team that somehow has got to, if they want to be a division winner, you've got learn how to win on the road. greg: and that is complete and out of bounds to derrick mason. a couple of tired defensive guys there in demeco ryan and brian cushing. dan: there's a lot to like about this team. connor barwin has played a heck of a game.

and they've competed. they've played hard. they played nose-to-nose physical football with one of the most physical teams in the nfl in the ravens. greg: schaub on second and 6. complete to kevin walter. and this forward progress will be marked at the 27. it will be a third and 3. dan: it's just the same old story for the texans, i'm sorry to say, is that they just once again, have appeared to lost the fourth quarter. greg: schaub over the middle and that's incomplete. mason could not make the catch. dan: and andre johnson, i'm sure is thinking i can't get back here soon enough. greg: oh, i think gary kubiak's thinking the same thing. dan: yeah. he was doing some running last week, surprising all of his teammates that he was able to do so-so quickly after having a little surgical procedure on that hamstring. greg: fourth and 3.

they're going to run it with foster. and ray lewis looks like he pulled him up short of first down yardage. he had to make the 30-yard line. dan: didn't look like he got there. greg: and i believe we're going to measure this from where the football is sitting. -- considering that it was a touchback. dan: well, keep in mind the chains were on the near side looking at that marker on the far side, you can't trust it. greg: no. ball goes over on downs. dan: houston having no time-outs . greg: ray lewis, 12 tack and also sack today. how unusual.

dan: the ravens will go into the victory formation and just take a knee. so once again, they raven who is have a very lofty -- they go to 4-0 now under john harbaugh, the week after a bye. here's what the ravens have coming up -- greg: ray rice, saluting the fans that's the cheering you

hear. and that will do it. that was the final play of this game and the houston texans have to find a way to win the second half of ballgames. dan: yeah. and when you're getting outscored by more than 2-1, i'm surprised that they're actually 3-3. greg: the time winds down. baltimore the winner by a score of 29-14. and a determined gritty effort for joe flacco and he baltimore ravens. our final score, baltimore 29, houston 14. for dan dierdorf and the rest of our sports crew, greg gumbel. so long from baltimore. coming up on cbs, sikh circus followed by a new "amazing race." only on cbs. a reminder you've been watching a reminder you've been watching the nfl on cbs. like so many great pioneers before me,

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landscape of central afghanistan, the new american ambassador, ryan crocker, is returning out of retirement to a diplomatic career shaped by islamic terrorism. his partner, marine corps general john allen, is a warrior/scholar-- four stars, three masters degrees. now back in afghanistan, the men who are running the war are very aware that it was ten years ago tonight that u.s. special forces prepared to land in response to 9/11. the question now is, what's your plan to get us out of here? >> safer: tonight a fascinating trek through art history. the life and death of that troubled giant of a painter, vincent van gogh. >> this beautiful cobalt blue. >> safer: we felt we knew the bare outlines, an unappreciated dutch genius who, in a fit of madness, cut off his ear and later killed himself-- a theory that's been accepted for 120 years.

but.... >> how did he get the gun? everybody in auvers knew he had been in an insane asylum. and the rumor is that vincent didn't kill himself, that he was shot accidentally by a couple of boys fit all of the known facts. >> safer: some old questions and some startling new answers that may well up-end art history. >> i'm steve kroft. >> i'm lesley stahl. >> i'm bob simon. >> i'm morley safer. >> i'm anderson cooper. >> i'm scott pelley. those stories tonight on "60 minutes." as the years go by, some questions loom large. are you prepared for your retirement years - 25 or more of them? do you have a financial plan for you family that works, in good times and in bad times? having the right perspective can help you answer the big questions. for more than 140 years, pacific life has helped find

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>> pelley: ten years ago tonight, u.s. special forces prepared to land in afghanistan to answer the attack on america. the taliban fell in just six weeks. and with that swift victory, america began a war that doesn't seem to end.

in the last few months, u.s. casualties have reached some of their highest levels, while america's relationship with a critical ally, pakistan, has sunk to new lows. why are we still in afghanistan? what's the plan? no one knows the answers better than the two men that president obama has just charged with running the war. over the forbidding landscape of central afghanistan, the new american ambassador, ryan crocker, is returning, out of retirement, to a diplomatic career shaped by islamic terrorism. his partner, marine corps general john allen, is a warrior/scholar-- four stars, three masters degrees, a combat commander who was dean of students at the naval academy. the pair arrived three months ago, called in by the president, because they're the same team that helped end the insurgency in iraq. what's your plan to get us out

of here? >> general john allen: well, the plan is to... is to win. the plan is to be successful, and the united states is going to be here for some period of time. >> pelley: that's the message general allen wanted friends and enemies to hear. the u.s. is scheduled to hand security over to afghanistan in 2014, the 13th year of the war, but he told us that won't be the end of it. you're talking about u.s. forces being here after 2014? >> allen: yes, there will be. >> pelley: how many? >> allen: we don't know. that's to be determined. >> pelley: some analysts have suggested 20,000 to 25,000. does that sound about right? >> allen: too early. it's too early to tell. >> pelley: are we talking about fighting forces? >> allen: we're talking about forces that will provide an advisory capacity. and we may even have some form of counter-terrorism force here to continue the process of developing the afghans' counter- terrorism capabilities, but, if necessary, respond ourselves. >> pelley: but what you're saying is that the united states isn't leaving afghanistan in the foreseeable future? >> allen: well, that's an important message.

>> pelley: a message that might surprise people who remember that a third of our troops are scheduled to be withdrawn next september. and to the enemy that believes that they can wait, perhaps in pakistan, until 2014? >> allen: it's a bad narrative. they're wasting their time. >> pelley: after the withdrawal in september, america will still have almost 70,000 troops here. so far, the war has claimed 1,800 american lives and cost half a trillion dollars. it runs about $2 billion a week. still, ambassador crocker told us there will be no rush to the exits. is it going to be an "uh-oh" moment for the american people... >> crocker: i don't think so. >> pelley: ...who are hoping that the u.s. involvement in afghanistan can be wrapped up? >> crocker: again, i think the american people understand what's at stake here. this is where 9/11 came from. >> pelley: no diplomat understands like ryan crocker. he was there at the beginning-- the first time islamic terrorists struck america, in

1983, the u.s. embassy in lebanon. crocker, age 33, a junior officer, emerged from the wreckage in a blood-stained shirt. later, he became ambassador to lebanon and kuwait, syria, pakistan and iraq. when you left as ambassador of iraq, you retired from the foreign service, and you promised your wife you would never go to a war zone again. what are you doing here? >> crocker: when the commander- in-chief asks you to serve in a time of war, there is only one right answer-- you say yes. and i believe that, with the right resources and the right approach, we can stabilize this country to the extent that there never again is a 9/11 that comes at us from afghan soil. i flew into new york that morning. >> pelley: on 9/11? >> crocker: on 9/11. i was one of the last planes to land at laguardia. i was stuck in traffic on the

queensboro bridge when both towers went down. i watched it happen. >> pelley: five weeks after it happened, u.s. forces landed here with the goal of defeating two enemies-- al qaeda and the taliban government that harbored the terrorists. the u.s. believes there are only about 50 al qaeda left here-- 50, and we were surprised by allen's estimate of taliban fighters. >> allen: it's probably in the in the low thousands. >> pelley: low thousands? >> allen: yes. >> pelley: 10,000? fewer? >> allen: again, low fewer, much fewer. >> pelley: the u.s. has 98,000 troops here, plus 40,000 from nato. around a third of them are combat forces. and you can add to that about 300,000 afghan troops. help me understand the order of battle-- if there are 400,000 coalition troops and 10,000 taliban, why can't we mop that up in a week? >> allen: let's be precise now, as well.

the a.n.s.f.-- the entire a.n.s.f.-- has yet to become operationally committed, which are both the police and the army. and so it requires, you know, a relative large footprint in order for us to dominate and prevent the taliban fighters from reentering the population. >> pelley: so it's not just a matter of hunting down these 10,000 enemy troops and killing them? >> allen: it's not just a hunter-killer mission that our troops are on. and we do deal with the... with the insurgents, and we deal with them very kinetically when they choose to fight. but they don't choose to fight on a regular basis. >> pelley: and when you say "kinetic," that's war college talk for shooting them? >> allen: well, it's marine talk for shooting them, as well, frankly. >> pelley: how can a few thousand taliban tie up the world's strongest military? we went to find out in the home of the taliban, kandahar province. here, the third brigade combat team of the tenth mountain division is fighting its way into territory no american has occupied. the brigade came in april, led by colonel patrick frank. your casualties so far? >> colonel patrick frank: we

have lost, in the third brigade combat team, 28 soldiers. >> pelley: and how many wounded? >> frank: we've had over 300 soldiers wounded. >> pelley: colonel frank showed us how the war has changed. for starters, because of the enemy's preferred weapon, we traveled in the new mine- resistant trucks that are such an improvement for the troops. how often do you have contact with the enemy? >> frank: on a given day, 20, 25 contacts with the enemy. >> pelley: now, nearly all of frank's casualties come from mines and roadside bombs. they found 52 of them in this area in just the last three weeks, and destroyed them. they're not standing and fighting you. >> frank: they do not. they know that, when we are able to identify their location, they will be met with overwhelming firepower. >> pelley: overwhelming firepower took this ground. it doesn't look like much but, here, colonel frank gets a sparkle in his eye. it's the home of mullah omar, the fugitive leader of the taliban.

this is the american strategy at work-- clear the enemy, hold the ground, and build roads, schools, markets-- even this playground-- so the afghans will move toward their government. the enemy does what he can to disrupt that. what have you got, colonel? >> frank: small arms fire appears to be from the south. >> pelley: enemy fire forces u.s. troops to build forts to hold on to what they've gained. this ground was captured by captain dennis call's men. this piece of ground you are building on now cost you what? >> captain dennis call: 32 american soldiers. we had 25 wounded and sustained seven killed in action here in the nalgam area. so the cost has been america's most precious commodity, and that is the american soldier. >> pelley: the forts provide security for improvements like this school built by colonel frank's soldiers.

but on the day we dropped in, the children were teaching. the adults had run away after a taliban warning. the enemy likes to tell villagers that the americans will leave and the taliban will come back. >> thank you very much. >> pelley: that's why afghanistan demands so much in time, treasure and troops. it takes a platoon to convince a village that the school's safe, and only the whisper of a threat to shut it down. and to make matters worse, the school is 75 miles from the border of pakistan. pakistan is supposed to be america's ally, but to hear general allen tell it, pakistan is a big part of the problem. does the enemy enjoy a safe haven in pakistan? >> allen: yes, he does. >> pelley: the enemy can move back and forth across that

border, essentially at will >> allen: it can, yes. >> pelley: pakistan not only tolerates the enemy, u.s. officials tell us that pakistani intelligence has a relationship with the terrorist group that's staging the most violent attacks today, a group called the haqqani network. this was the scene in kabul last month as fighters from the haqqani network dramatically upped the ante with a 20-hour attack on general allen's headquarters and ambassador crocker's embassy. you're the one who was under fire, you personally. they were shooting at you. >> crocker: yeah. and i was pretty damn mad about it, you know. if you want to talk about hostility, an attack on an american embassy in a third country that emanates from the soil of pakistan is about as hostile as you can get. >> pelley: it was just days before that attack that general allen went to pakistan to try to stop a haqqani bomb that u.s. intelligence knew was coming.

i understand that you had intelligence that there was a truck bomb heading from pakistan to attack your troops, and that you personally took that information to the head of the pakistani army, general kayani, and asked him to stop it. >> allen: i did. i asked him for help in that regard and knowing, of course, that there has been a relationship through the intelligence service with the haqqanis, i would ask anyone for help to try to stop that truck bomb from getting into kabul, which is what we believed it was trying to do. >> pelley: what became of that truck? >> allen: it... we think it ultimately exploded against the outer wall of one of our combat outposts. >> pelley: how many of your troops were injured? >> allen: 77 were wounded that day. >> pelley: by a truck bomb that you told the pakistanis was coming? >> allen: yes, that's correct. >> pelley: how did you feel about that? >> allen: i was emotional over the issue. >> pelley: i brought this up to the pakistani foreign minister the other day.

she told me, "well, if you knew the truck was coming, why didn't you stop it?" >> allen: we were trying to stop it. and we will ask for help to try to stop it from those who we think might be able to help us. and ultimately, it went off against an american position. that's unacceptable and, again, i'll deal with the haqqanis as they come across the border. >> pelley: if those safe havens haven't been closed up in ten years, why should you have any hope that it's going to happen now? >> crocker: i think the pressure has clearly been ratcheted up. >> pelley: that's the lesson crocker and allen learned in putting down the insurgency in iraq-- pressure the safe havens, hit them on the battlefield, but offer the enemy a way to join the government. their experience in iraq made us wonder what might be going on here that no one's heard about. is the united states negotiating with the taliban? >> crocker: we talk to the whole range of people-- i learned that in iraq. >> pelley: but have u.s. officials spoken directly with taliban representatives? >> crocker: again, we talked to the whole range of people,

anybody who will talk to us. i let you draw your own conclusions. >> pelley: sounds like a yes. >> crocker: as i said, you can... you can draw your own conclusions. >> pelley: the u.s. is spending $300 million a day in afghanistan. over the last couple of years, about 250,000 teachers have been laid off back home, and there are a lot of folks who don't believe this is worth it? >> allen: this is worth it. they can be proud of what we've accomplished here. they can be proud of what we will accomplish here. >> pelley: it will take vision to see what can be accomplished. america's new leadership in afghanistan is faced with building a peaceful society among people much more accustomed to war. cbs money watch update sponsored by:

>> mitchell: good evening. apple is remembering steve jobs at a private memorial tonight. the company's stock closed friday at a record high. gas prices jumped 6 cents this week to $3.46 a gallon, and "real steel" was number one again at the weekend box office after a photo finish with "footloose." i'm russ mitchell, cbs news.

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>> safer: tonight, we offer a rare visual treat-- a look into the life and death of that troubled giant of a painter, vincent van gogh. the bare outline of his life: unappreciated dutch genius who,

in a fit of madness, cut off his ear, and later killed himself. now, there's a new biography that challenges a crucial part of the van gogh legend, a ten- year forensic investigation by two pulitzer prize-winning authors. if their detective work is right, it may well upend art history. their story rambles from van gogh's birthplace in holland to paris, rural france, and to south carolina. much of our report is magnificently illustrated by the artist himself. here, outside the village of auvers in the french countryside he loved, on the very edge of the wheat fields he painted so vividly-- here lies vincent van gogh, alongside his devoted brother, theo. >> safer: no soaring memorials. it's just these simple headstones. >> steve naifeh: yeah, it couldn't be more moving, knowing

that vincent spent most of his adult life wanting to be with theo. and to have them spend eternity lying next to each other is seriously touching. >> safer: as we talked to co- author steven naifeh, a steady stream of pilgrims made their way through the fields to pay their respects at vincent's grave. tens of thousands of them come every year. >> naifeh: japanese visitors actually bring the ashes of their ancestors to pour on the grave of the painter of "starry night." russian visitors bring vodka to pour on the grave. these south koreans brought music. >> ♪ on that starry, starry night you took your life... ♪ >> safer: don mclean's famous anthem to vincent, an artist largely ignored in his lifetime, even ridiculed by the art establishment, whose paintings are now valued in the hundreds of millions of dollars and command center stage at the great museums of the world.

>> naifeh: the colors are beautiful and they're bright and they're cheerful. and if it's a bowl of flowers, it's an exuberant bowl of irises or roses. if it's a landscape, it's all the beauty of the natural world washing over you. you don't have to have a degree in art history to understand that message. >> safer: at the musee d'orsay in paris, we talked of art and madness, sitting by one of van gogh's iconic self-portraits, painted in 1889 at saint paul, a clinic for the insane in saint remy, where he had himself committed for a year. some other masterworks done at saint remy-- "irises," "cypresses," and "starry night." >> naifeh: whether it's "starry night," with all that swirling sky, or the swirling brushstrokes in this painting, there are people who have said that this was a depiction of the craziness emanating from his mind. i don't think he's trying that

at all. these beautiful, exquisitely colored blue brush strokes are really creating a pattern of unity and harmony and beauty. >> safer: within the madness, there was genius. >> naifeh: vincent was enormously proud that he painted this entire painting in less than an hour-- about 45 minutes. >> safer: he worked so quickly that, in nine years, he turned out more than a thousand paintings and another thousand drawings. >> naifeh: these are not just crazy works of art by a crazy painter; they are intentional masterpieces by somebody who knew exactly what they're doing. >> safer: for ten years, steve naifeh and his partner, greg smith-- who's recovering from cancer surgery-- peered into every dark corner of vincent van gogh's life. he was laughed out of art school. couldn't hold a job. and even tried being a minister, like his father, with disastrous results. he was a wanderer, a kind of

constant pilgrim, and a failure at virtually everything he did. >> greg smith: right. >> safer: failed as a preacher, failed as a son. >> smith: he couldn't find a niche anywhere. even when he was working for an evangelical church, they found his behavior too weird, and so they just kicked him out. >> safer: from childhood, he was haunted by inner demons: argumentative, given to strange outbursts, a social misfit. >> smith: he basically is a man who lived to be 37 years old and never really had a friend. >> safer: he was a loner who needed company. >> smith: desperately. that's exactly right. >> safer: which is why he relished painting portraits. though many were afraid of him and refused to pose, others agreed: a shepherd in provence; eugen boch, a poet; joseph roulin, a mailman; a fellow patient at the insane asylum; monsieur trabuc, the head attendant there.

>> naifeh: of all of his subjects, portraits were definitely his favorite. the reason was really less artistic than it was emotional. and that was, out of his loneliness, one of his few ways to connect with people was to paint somebody. >> smith: there are 150,000 of these cards... >> safer: from their offices in aiken, south carolina, smith and naifeh used a small army of researchers, translators, and computer experts to collect every known fact about the artist. they discovered a remarkable mind-- an insatiable reader: shakespeare, zola, dickens, walt whitman. >> smith: this is a letter to his sister wil that he wrote in 1888... >> safer: an incurable letter writer, who, for all his madness, was fluent in dutch, french, german and english. in addition to vincent's letters, the van gogh museum in amsterdam gave the authors access to a trove of family correspondence never before

published-- anguished letters about vincent, the stranger in their midst. >> naifeh: some people will be surprised at just how alienated he was from his family. and even theo kept a certain distance from him. >> safer: it fell on theo van gogh, who looked remarkably like his older brother, to support vincent financially, to be the peacemaker when the grown child, at odds with a hostile world, kept turning up on the family doorstep. vincent first took up painting at theo's suggestion, but concentrated on bleak, chilly scenes-- winter at the family parsonage. haggard peasants in abject poverty. >> smith: vincent used to literally bring the paintings into the family dining room and set them in a chair so that the peasants could attend the family dinner. and that was enormously offensive to the... you know, the family thought he was crazy, literally. >> safer: he was, in short, an embarrassment to his father, the

austere parson van gogh, the man of god vincent had once tried to become. throughout the rest of his life, he felt guilt, or somehow responsibility, for his father's death. how come? >> naifeh: he just fought constantly with his father, and his father died of a stroke. the constant tension in the household, the family believed, contributed to the father's death. and so the mother never forgave him. >> safer: his mother had taught him to draw. vincent painted her years after she had turned her back on him. "i believe he has always been insane," she wrote. "his suffering and ours has been the result." and yet, he painted her with a forgiving smile, as if art might ease the pain. >> smith: his whole approach to art was the world is an angry and mean place... >> safer: hostile place. >> smith: ...hostile place. and that art, like religion, was there to console those who were

heartbroken by life. and that was first and foremost him. he was first in line. >> safer: what exactly was tormenting vincent van gogh? it was that single gruesome act that offers a clue-- the ear incident. in 1888, vincent found what he thought was a kindred spirit, fellow painter paul gauguin. for two months, they shared the famous yellow house in the southern french city of arles. why did gauguin join with him in the first place? >> naifeh: money. very simply, money. theo was basically buying him as company for vincent. >> safer: van gogh painted gauguin at work. gauguin painted van gogh, but found vincent's craziness impossible to live with. they argued bitterly and gauguin left. what followed was a major psychotic episode.

did he cut the entire ear off or the lobe or what? >> naifeh: there was some dispute about that. it appears that he cut off more than the lobe, but less than the entire ear. and it was a disturbing sight, even after it healed. >> safer: in the hospital, vincent was treated by a young intern named felix rey, who then spent months trying to diagnose his mental condition. though doctors have debated the matter for a century, naifeh and smith believe doctor rey's diagnosis was the right one-- temporal lobe epilepsy, which can induce a kind of horrible electric storm in the brain. >> smith: temporal lobe epilepsy was a brand new disease in 1890. >> naifeh: or at least diagnosed for the first time. >> smith: yeah, just been diagnosed. since then, it's been better understood, they know more about it. >> safer: and it's treatable now. >> smith: and it's treatable. and we took what his doctors knew about it, and laid that over what is now known about it.

and so it... the fit was perfect. >> safer: the seizures could be ignited by something as benign as sunlight streaming through the trees, by stress, by rejection-- by strange dreams, his constant companions. he heard voices, saw ghosts accusing him of awful crimes. >> naifeh: a person with the disease feels it coming on, and there's terrible dread that comes with it. during the attack, you lose consciousness. you don't know what happens to you. and each new attack makes the next one more likely. so it is an absolutely terrifying disease. >> safer: it was a madness foretold in many ways. there was epilepsy on both sides of vincent's family. and he was marked from childhood with tell-tale symptoms-- angry, suspicious, a child who'd run away from home in a thunderstorm. >> naifeh: the syndrome of behaviors that are exhibited by people with that disease reads

like a road map to vincent's personality. >> safer: the map of his madness, according to the accepted theory, ultimately led vincent to the wheat fields one summer evening. there, armed with a pistol, he attempted suicide. gravely wounded, he managed somehow to get himself down the hill and up the stairs to his tiny rented room-- this room-- in the town of auvers where, 30 hours later, he died with theo at his side. that's the story that's endured for 121 years. >> smith: the first inkling that i got that there was something wrong was when i really started to look at the existing story. there were so many things about it that were wrong and didn't make sense. >> safer: their database kept yielding inconsistencies, contradictions and unexplained questions about the official story. for instance:

>> naifeh: how did he get the gun? everybody in auvers knew that he had been in an insane asylum. pistols were a rarity in rural france. who would've given vincent van gogh a gun? >> safer: when we return, what the authors think is the true story of van gogh's death. welcome to the cbs sports update presented by follow the wings. i'm james brown in new york. green bay an easy winner over st. louis as the only undie feeted team remaining. new england stands atop the a.f.c. east while the giants lead the n.f.c. east. baltimore has half-game lead over pittsburgh and cincinnati in the n.f.c. north. a tragic note. two-time indy 500 winner dan weldon died in a 15-car accident in the las vegas indycar race. he was 33. follow the wings.

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>> safer: in 1956, the movie "lust for life" was released. that biography of vincent van

gogh, more than anything else, etched into history the suicide in the wheat field version of how he died. it starred kirk douglas as the troubled artist. troubled in so many ways-- bedeviled by hallucinations, depressed, probably alcoholic, suffering from that curse of the 19th century, syphilis. a lonely figure to be avoided or mocked. but in the spring of 1890, at age 37, he found a place he thought would bring him peace-- the french village of auvers, where he would die just 70 days after his arrival. the authors of the new van gogh biography maintain the circumstances of his death were far different from the movie version. auvers was just a half hour train ride from paris, a quiet, bucolic farming town on the banks of the river oise.

the area was a magnet for painters like cezanne, pissarro and corot, giants of modern art. >> naifeh: this was not only a place where the best artists of the era came to paint, because it was so beautiful-- for somewhat similar reasons, the wealthy of paris would come and summer here. it was sort of the hamptons of the 1890s. >> safer: the smart set. >> naifeh: the smart set came here. >> safer: inspired by his surroundings, van gogh painted like a man possessed, turning out a picture a day. he painted the medieval church on the hill, looking as though it's about to jump off the canvas. he painted the town hall, decked out for bastille day. and just across the street, the auberge ravoux, the inn where he lived and took his meals. he ate here every day? >> naifeh: he did eat here every day. his only social interaction during the day was in ordering food, which is really incredibly sad. >> safer: in this picture taken

outside the inn the year vincent died, gustave ravoux, the owner, sits at the left. his teenage daughter adeline stands in the doorway, key figures in the story of what happened on sunday, july 27, 1890. on that day, like most other days, vincent left the cafeé carrying his easel, some canvases, and his paint box, ready to begin yet another day of feverish work. and just as the sun was setting, he returned to the cafeé-- staggering, clutching his stomach, clearly in great pain. was his injury the result of a botched suicide attempt, as the official history maintains, or had something else happened? the "lust for life" version, with douglas at his teeth- gnashing best, draws on a story that adeline ravoux told many years later, that vincent had been bothered by crows as he

painted, and borrowed a gun from her father to keep them away, but... >> naifeh: he loved birds. the idea that he would feel a need to scare away crows just never made any sense. >> safer: did he have suicide in mind? the painting in the film does seem to carry a dark prophecy-- the crows, harbingers of death. for years, that painting, "wheat field with crows," was thought to be vincent's last work, his own visual epitaph, but... >> naifeh: in fact, it seems to have been painted about july 10, which is more than two weeks before he died. and he painted a lot of very happy paintings after that. >> safer: in many of his letters, van gogh did write of considering suicide, but always rejected it, concluding that such an act would be both sinful and immoral. what we only know for sure is that a gun was present on that day and vincent was shot.

( gunshot ) the gun and the painting supplies were never found. and the suicide story presented other problems, beginning with the distance from the wheat fields to the ravoux inn, about a mile or more. it would have been a long hike over rough terrain for a badly wounded man. >> naifeh: how did he climb through these vast wheat fields and down the escarpment into town? it's a rather difficult journey, and extremely difficult to imagine that, in that physical condition, he could have made that trip. >> safer: the authors believe he didn't. their research turned up a story handed down through an auvers family over the years of a man who saw vincent just before the shooting-- not in the wheat fields, but here in town on the rue boucher, a street of small houses with enclosed farmyards.