Read the following passage and answer the item that follows. Your answer to this item should be based on the passage only.

The rule that an official note be written when the thing happens, and not afterwards, looks like bureaucratic fussiness until a dispute arrives. A note made at the time records what was known then, including the doubts, and it cannot be adjusted by what everyone learnt later. A reconstruction made after the outcome is known is written by someone who cannot now unknow it, and it will quietly tidy the reasoning into the shape the outcome suggests. The later account may be more coherent. That is exactly the difficulty with it.

Which one of the following statements best reflects the crux of the above passage?