How do you deal with this tricky situation regarding tense?

Hi, Andrew,

@Andrew Van Wagner posted:

Two complicated situations (for me, at least!) regarding tense; both give me a headache to try to unravel.

Note the clarification that I added in square brackets; Graham was deceased when the reflections (on the interactions) occurred.

1: Is it "he had no reason" or "he'd had no reason"?

2: Is it "he'd believed" or "he believed"?

See the bold:

My general approach for the documentary was just to interview the politicians and then let the critics challenge things. But I made an exception with the Graham interview, since it was really important to me—and had been for a while—that someone ask him some challenging questions about Haiti.

And it was very uncomfortable when I challenged him about Haiti—the tension in the room was so thick that you could cut it with a knife. But I feel like the victims of Canada’s intervention in Haiti were owed the chance to see Graham challenged.

[After Graham died,] I reflected on my interactions with him, including off-camera ones where he had no reason to be insincere. My conclusion was that he’d believed—wholeheartedly—the establishment story where Canada’s intervention was a good thing that saved Aristide’s life and prevented great bloodshed.

IMHO, your usage of both tenses sounds good. There is no need use the past perfect with 'he had no reason'. It simply means 'during our interview, he had no reason to be insincere.' The second one implies that he had had that belief even before our interview. Using 'believed' is also grammatically correct here, by the way. That's because if he were still alive, the present simple tense would be used.

"My conclusion is that he believes -wholeheartedly-..."