craig: that came from edmund morris.sked several reagan staffers about it, they said it wasn't true. i felt obliged i should put it in. brian: what is the story? that secret service agents would put leaves in the pool and he would rip them out. but they said it wasn't true. brian: how do you test whether or not someone is telling you the truth? because people want to put the best light on people like him. craig: right. i found that most people -- in fact, everybody has been forthcoming. if anything was suspicious at all, i would backcheck it. there is the written record against another ride witness, things that i thought -- another eyewitness, things that i just thought didn't feel right. involved with the story myself, at least the campaign. so i knew what was accurate and what wasn't accurate. not that i was deeply involved, but from my vantage point, i saw what was accurate and what wasn't accurate. it is a test. there is no doubt about it. won'tis one guy -- i mention his name -- but he insisted i interviewed him bec

. >> edmund be morris are, reagan's -- edmund morris, reagan's authorized biographer, ended up writing dutch. >> he resorted to writing a fictional character. i'm surprised at a certain point he didn't throw up his hands and go to his editor and say i can't do it, i'm going to write a normal. i'm sort of glad he didn't, because he left the field clear. dutch is a maddening book in some ways because it doesn't fit into any really known form. but it has many brilliant passages in it. morris has some tremendous insights into reagan. but you can sense also the frustration and the bafflement of not being able to get the kind of clear fix on his personality that a biographer often hopes and expects to get on their subject. >> without betraying your personal politics, did you develop an affinity for your protagonist? >> i never felt intimate with him in the way i did with richard nixon who was a protagonist. i won't say hero, but the protagonist of my previous novel. nixon and reagan were in frequent communication during reagan's presidency. i don't know what it says about me, but i felt comf