My difficult words

If Lott’s resignation and Scruggs’s arrest were coincidental, it strained credibility.As the investigation widened to draw in other important figures, thestory grew even more intriguing.

Ido, too,” he blurted.

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struggle with his most formidable opponent to date—the Americaninsurance industry—in a series of bristling lawsuits growing out of Hurricane Katrina.

He made many jocular asides, but as dark-ness began to gather us in gloom, he sighed and said, “My life is over.”He and Zach and others with whom I talked went off to prison.

He spoke, for hours,of the villainy he felt the federal government had committed during itsinvestigation.

No one mentioned his case, thoughit hovered over the table conversation like a spectral presence.

No one mentioned his case, thoughit hovered over the table conversation like a spectral presence.

“I still remember your candor and cooperation whenwe first met ten years ago and I was working on a story for Boston Globe
lobe that dealt with the Luckey-Wilson case.”

“Although you don’t need my ‘permission’to write on this sordid affair, I just don’t feel right about the appear-ance of exploiting it.”

Ten years later, the re-percussions from that case were factors in Scruggs’s current dilemma.In the intervening years, Dick and I had both moved to Oxford, and Ihad gotten to know him better.A couple of days after I sent him the note, he called.

Even though I had retired at the conclusion of the 2000 elec-tion and become a member of the faculty at the University of Mississippi,it occurred to me that this might be the story of my lifetime.Two months after the first arrests in the case, with a trial quicklyapproaching, I dropped Dick a note telling him of my interest in writ-ing a book.

Since he grew up in a south Mississippi countyadjacent to my childhood home, he attributed his sense of awkward-ness to: “Maybe it’s a Lincoln County thing?”

Without any assurance that Scruggs would ever talk on the recordwith me, I began my book project, following newspaper and magazineaccounts, interviewing individuals involved in the case, gathering court documents, collecting information that had never been made public.Drawing on old Mississippi connections, I interviewed dozens of peo-ple on all sides of the ugly conflict.Meanwhile, the Scruggs story went through several convulsions overthe next few months.It became increasingly apparent to m...

Since he grew up in a south Mississippi countyadjacent to my childhood home, he attributed his sense of awkward-ness to: “Maybe it’s a Lincoln County thing?”

“I appreciate that you have to be guarded in anything yousay regarding the case, but at some point I would hope we could talk about it,” I wrote.

struggle with his most formidable opponent to date—the Americaninsurance industry—in a series of bristling lawsuits growing out of Hurricane Katrina.

Without any assurance that Scruggs would ever talk on the recordwith me, I began my book project, following newspaper and magazineaccounts, interviewing individuals involved in the case, gathering court documents, collecting information that had never been made public.Drawing on old Mississippi connections, I interviewed dozens of peo-ple on all sides of the ugly conflict.Meanwhile, the Scruggs story went through several convulsions overthe next few months.It became increasingly appare...

If Lott’s resignation and Scruggs’s arrest were coincidental, it strained credibility.As the investigation widened to draw in other important figures, thestory grew even more intriguing.

Without any assurance that Scruggs would ever talk on the recordwith me, I began my book project, following newspaper and magazineaccounts, interviewing individuals involved in the case, gathering court documents, collecting information that had never been made public.Drawing on old Mississippi connections, I interviewed dozens of peo-ple on all sides of the ugly conflict.Meanwhile, the Scruggs story went through several convulsions overthe next few months.It became increasingly apparent

struggle with his most formidable opponent to date—the Americaninsurance industry—in a series of bristling lawsuits growing out of Hurricane Katrina.

He made many jocular asides, but as dark-ness began to gather us in gloom, he sighed and said, “My life is over.”He and Zach and others with whom I talked went off to prison.