R.I.P. Mike Wallace

R.I.P.  Mike Wallace.
Newsman passes away at 93.
Chris Wallace mentioned he had been in ill health  and never mentioned his career, only his family.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/08/us-usa-wallace-idUSBRE83708Y20120408 
Imho, he was a giant. 
 

I even remember him as a quiz show host back in the 1950's and watched him on 60 Minutes from the show's inception back in the 1960's.  He gave "world-class tough" interviews but always seemed fair to me.  I'll certainly miss him, but he was blessed with a long, long life in which he was still playing tennis well into his 80's.  We all should be so blessed with good health and far more than our three score and ten. 
 
I remember that in an interview he "confessed" to being a Republican.  He was a rare bird, indeed.  R.I.P.

I have a close friend who was once interviewed by Mike Wallace concerning corruption of a local school board in Jackson County, Kentucky. The case was dubbed “Little Abscam” in the 60 Minutes segment.
 
My friend wasn’t very trusting of the media, so he was prepared for the interview. He said that after a couple of hours with Mike Wallace, Wallace sat up straight and remarked, “An acquaintance of yours told me that you might try to tape our conversation. That’s not really true is it?” My friend grinned real big and said, “Well, you’re taping me, aren’t you”.
 
After days of my friend listening to the hogwash the defendants’ attorneys were spewing in the trial, my friend approached the prosecutor during one of the recesses. He told him he had something that might help with the prosecution. He gave him an unedited tape of his interview by Wallace.
 
The whole case ended up being settled with the defendants changing their pleas to guilty when my friend handed over to the prosecutors the tape of Mike Wallace saying, “The attorneys of xxxxxxx told me that their clients are guilty as hell, but they’ll get them off”. While technically it would have been considered hearsay, the fact that the attorney breached the attorney/client privilege, it was enough to convince the whole bunch of them to just go ahead a cut a deal.
 
Unknowingly, Mike Wallace helped send a bunch of crooks to prison.

I loved when he took on Con men, some we're lol!

I actually met Mike Wallace twice. Once we were on a professional panel together discussing the big brouhaha over the Jeffrey Wigand/60 Minutes story about Big Tobacco, when CBS edited the story because of concerns about being sued for tortious interference with business relations (this was turned into the semi-fictitious film "The Insider"); the other time, Wallace came to a black tie fundraising event for the organization I then headed, at the last minute, in place of his then-colleague Dan Rather, who was supposed to have attended but double-booked himself.
 
Both times Wallace was gracious, funny, and insightful.  He is already missed in the industry.

Great stories. I always liked his reporting and his exposes.  One of the greats