Even before historian Joseph Ellis became a best-selling author, he was famous for his vivid lectures. In his popular courses at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts, he would often make classroom discussion lively by describing his own fighting experience in Vietnam. But as Ellis's reputation grew--his books on the Founding Fathers won both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize ---the history professor began to entertain local and national reporters with his memories of war. Last year, after The Boston Globe reported Ellis's experience in the Vietnam war, someone who knew the truth about Ellis  _ Last week The Boston Globe revealed that Ellis, famous for explaining the nation's history, had some explaining to do about his own past. "Even in the best of lives, mistakes are made," said Ellis. It turned out that while the historian had served in the Army, he'd spent his war years not in the jungles of Southeast Asia , but teaching history at West Point ( ). He'd also overstated his role in the antiwar movement and even his high-school athletic records. His admission shocked colleagues, fellow historians and students who wondered why someone so successful would beautify his past. But it seems that success and truthfulness don't always go hand in hand.  Even among the successful achievers, security experts say, one in ten is deceiving. And, oddly, people often beautify their past once they're famous, says Ernest Brod of Kroll Associates, which has conducted thousands of background checks. Then what makes them do it? Psychologists say some people succeed, at least in part, because they are uniquely adjusted to the expectations of others. And no matter how well-known, those people can be haunted ( ) by a sense of their own shortcomings. "From outside, these people look anything but fragile," says Dennis Shulman, a psychoanalyst. "But inside, they feel hollow, empty," While Ellis served in the Army, he   _
fought in Vietnam taught history at a military school pretended to be a historian made mistakes in the antiwar movement.