How Mike Wallace created ‘a revolution’ in journalism — while battling depression

In his swaggering glory days as a “60 Minutes” star of stars, it was sometimes said that the mere mention of Mike Wallace’s name could strike fear in the hearts of resolute men and women.

Gen. William Westmoreland, who famously sued Wallace and the top-ranked CBS news program for libel after they aired a documentary asserting that enemy troop strength figures in the Vietnam War were manipulated, called him “unscrupulous and arrogant.” (The case was abruptly dropped after a long trial.) Barbra Streisand pegged him as a “son of a b----.” Actor Kirk Douglas said he’d heard that Wallace was a “pretty rough boy.”