“Fear” Is a Book of Fiction Mixed with Real Events

Abstract

Several book reviews were published prior to the publication of “ Fear : Trump in the White House ” on September 11, 2018, with emphasis on “terrifying scenes” (e.g., John F, Kelly reportedly said that Trump is an “idiot”). These reviews, however, did not discuss two major problems in “Fear,” namely, the contexts (i.e., environments, locations, settings, etc.) in which dialogues in “Fear” occurred and the probability that Woodward’s “sources” were present in such contexts, as well as the probability that such “sources” remembered and then reported verbatim extensive dialogues between two or more individuals in “Fear , ” because of the limited capacity of the human short-term memory. This commentary suggests that Woodward did not “fabricate” the contents of “Fear,” as claimed by some in the White House, but argues that Woodward honestly believed what his “sources” reported to him without questioning such “sources” regarding the two major problems in “Fear.”