As befitting someone who cut his journalistic teeth covering the Kennedy assassination, the Vietnam War and Watergate, Dan Rather never intended to go down without a fight.

The veteran newsman sued CBS and its former parent company Viacom for $70 million Tuesday, alleging that the network used him as a scapegoat "to pacify the White House" during the 2004 reporting fiasco involving President Bush's military record that eventually led to Rather's premature resignation as anchor of the CBS Evening News the following year.

In the lawsuit filed in State Supreme Court in Manhattan, Rather accuses CBS of violating his contract by purposely cutting into his allotted airtime on 60 Minutes and of committing fraud by conducting a biased inquiry into the incident that came to be known as "Rathergate," seriously damaging his reputation in the process.

According to Rather's complaint, he extended his tenure as anchor of the network news broadcast in 2002 with a contract guaranteeing him $6 million-per-year and top billing on the midweek 60 Minutes spin-off if he happened to leave his anchor position before March 2006.

Rather ended up leaving in March 2005, five months after 60 Minutes Wednesday aired an unsubstantiated segment about preferential treatment that the president supposedly received during the Vietnam War when he was a lieutenant in the Texas Air National Guard, a report gleaned from what turned out to be inauthentic documents.

The segment's producer, Mary Mapes, was fired and three network executives were asked to turn in their resignations.

When he stepped down, 60 Minutes Wednesday had been canceled but, per the lawsuit, Rather's contract entitled him to a regular correspondent's position on 60 Minutes.

Rather had eight segments on the air in 2005, all of which, according to him, he had to fight tooth and nail for and he still ended up with half as many reports as his colleagues.

"He was provided with very little staff support, very few of his suggested stories were approved, editing services were denied to him, and the broadcast of the few stories he was permitted to do was delayed and then played on carefully selected evenings, when low viewership was anticipated," the lawsuit states.

Especially offensive to Rather, the suit says, was CBS' refusal to send him to New Orleans to cover Hurricane Katrina two years ago.

"Mr. Rather is the most experienced reporter in the United States in covering hurricanes," the complaint reads. "CBS refused to send him…furthering its desire to keep Mr. Rather off the air."

Also named as defendants are CBS Corp. president and CEO Leslie Moonves, Viacom chairman Sumner Redstone and former CBS News president Andrew Heyward.

"These complaints are old news and this lawsuit is without merit," Heyward said in a statement Wednesday.

In the 32-page filing, Rather claims that Heyward pressed him to focus on the other stories he was working on at the time, such as Bill Clinton's heart surgery and Hurricane Frances, rather than delve into the Bush story.

Rather, who along with Peter Jennings and Tom Brokaw made up one of the most recognizable triumvirate of network news anchors in history, alleges that he served as little more than a glorified narrator for the Bush report and that it was CBS which forced him to issue a public apology on Sept. 20, 2004—"despite his own personal feelings that no public apology from him was warranted."

"As defendants well knew, even if any aspect of the broadcast had not been accurate, which has never been established, Mr. Rather was not responsible for any such errors," the suit states.

An independent investigative panel concluded at the time that Rather was "pushed to the limit" by his other story commitments and that CBS rushed the report on the air.

"The combination of a new 60 Minutes Wednesday management team, great deference given to a highly respected producer and the network’s news anchor, competitive pressures, and a zealous belief in the truth of the segment seem to have led many to disregard some fundamental journalistic principles," the panel concluded.

The 75-year-old Rather, who stepped down from the Evening News on the 24th anniversary of his first broadcast as anchor, currently helms Dan Rather Reports on HDNet, the cable channel owned by billionaire entrepreneur—and upcoming Dancing with the Stars contestant—Mark Cuban.