Past some point, even people with some first-hand knowledge may not know the whole truth, filter things through their own biases, may just misremember, etc.
My dad kept a diary during his combat tour in WW2. Decades later, he read it and was shocked to discover that it did not quite line up with his memories.
When I prepared a "history of D" for a paper a while back, I went looking through all my documents and emails and the D forum history looking to pin things down. I, too, discovered that my memories didn't match the facts as well as I wished it did.
Memory is a funny thing.
One should always be skeptical of accounts written long after the fact. I sometimes wonder how much of our written history is false. I support statutes of limitations because of this.
