Dan Rather Sues CBS, Seeking To 'Restore His Reputation'

Dan Rather says CBS has "cost him significant financial loss and seriously damaged his reputation." (By Seth Wenig -- Associated Press)

CBS aired the story on Sept. 8, 2004, at the height of the presidential campaign, hours after White House official Dan Bartlett did not challenge the authenticity of the memos when asked about them by CBS. Bartlett said later that he had no way of knowing on such short notice whether the memos were real.

Gold, Rather's lawyer, maintained that "nobody's proved the documents were forgeries. The way we look at it, it's more than likely the documents are authentic."

An outside panel, appointed by CBS and headed by former attorney general Dick Thornburgh and former Associated Press chief executive Lou Boccardi, accused the network of having "failed miserably" to authenticate the memos and of making false and misleading statements in defending the story afterward. Three top executives resigned under pressure, and Rather's producer, Mary Mapes, was fired.

The uproar hastened the end of Rather's remarkable 44-year career at CBS, which stretched from covering the assassination of John F. Kennedy to conducting the last Western interview with Saddam Hussein. It also revived criticism that he was a liberal who was biased against Republican presidents dating back to Richard M. Nixon.

Bernard Goldberg, a former CBS correspondent and a sharp critic of Rather, said yesterday that the former anchor is a great reporter, "but the dark side is that he's unwilling or incapable of accepting responsibility. . . . This is the man who signed off his newscast with 'courage,' and now he's alleging 'they made me do it, they just put the words in front of me.' This is ridiculous on so many levels."

In the suit, Rather says he "played largely a supervisory role" in producing and vetting the story because he had been instructed to concentrate on his anchoring duties and covering a Florida hurricane and the Republican National Convention in New York.

Said Howard, the former executive producer, who is now a CNBC executive: "You can't have it both ways. He wasn't forced to read the script. He pressured us to put the story on the air."

Twelve days after the story aired, according to the suit, Heyward, then the news division chief, "instructed" Rather to read an apology on the "Evening News," despite Rather's "own personal feelings that no apology from him was warranted." In those on-air remarks, Rather called the story a "mistake" and added: "I want to say personally and directly, I'm sorry."

Those words, the suit says, caused the media and public to blame him for the bungled story. Heyward declined to comment yesterday.

The outside probe was "designed to give the appearance of fairness," but "its conclusions were preordained," the suit charges, noting Thornburgh's role in the George H.W. Bush administration and as a Republican Senate candidate.

To buttress Rather's charge that CBS wanted to mend fences with the White House, the suit points to a Time interview in the fall of 2004 in which Redstone said Bush's reelection would help Viacom.

"They sacrificed independent journalism for corporate financial interests," Gold said.

Asked why Rather would sue more than a year after leaving CBS, Gold said the former anchor was "a bit appalled" at new information he said had emerged involving a private investigator, Erik Rigler, who was hired by the network during the 2004 controversy. Rigler, a former FBI agent, "was trying to dig up dirt on Dan and Mary Mapes," Gold said, declining to elaborate.

When CBS came under fire over the story, Gold said, Rather told Heyward he wanted to hire an investigator at his own expense, but Heyward responded that CBS would retain such a person. Gold said, again without providing evidence, that Rigler concluded that the Guard memos were authentic and the story accurate. He was interviewed by the Thornburgh-Boccardi panel, which accused Rather and CBS of a "myopic zeal" to rush the story to air five days after obtaining the disputed papers.

Reached by phone, Rigler declined to comment last night.

Lynne Bernabei, a Washington lawyer who specializes in employment disputes, called Rather's suit "a hard case to prove" but said he might mount a credible argument that CBS had breached the contract by minimizing his airtime. Still, she said, "the fact that he made an on-air admission that he made mistakes makes it hard for him to prove some of the other claims that they misled him."

When Rather was transferred to "60 Minutes II" and, after its cancellation, the original Sunday "60 Minutes," CBS paid him $6 million a year under his contract but "allowed him to function in a very limited capacity," the suit says. Rather did about 10 pieces over a year for "60 Minutes," including stories from North Korea and China.

As further evidence of CBS's abandonment, the suit said, the network did not respond to criticism of Rather by "60 Minutes" veterans Mike Wallace and Andy Rooney, among others.

Rather clearly intended to make a splash with the suit: He has agreed to appear tonight on "Larry King Live."