Four days after GOP political guru Karl Rove sparked a war with conservatives by claiming he directed the 1980 Texas presidential campaign for Ronald Reagan, friends have come forward to back him up.

Jim Francis, who was the political advisor to then-Texas Gov. Bill Clements, told Secrets Monday that Rove was executive director of the GOP Victory Campaign in Texas in 1980, a massive grassroots political operation that coordinated closely with the official Reagan campaign in Texas.