The pugnacious Mike Wallace never pulled any punches in his encounters with the powerful figures he interviewed. Wallace, who passed away Sunday in Connecticut, will be fondly remembered as the intrepid interviewer who once asked the Ayatollah Khomeini if he was a “lunatic,” friends and colleagues said Sunday. The man who at one time described himself as “an overachiever” interviewed the world’s most important figures in the second half of the 20th century, including Martin Luther King Jr., John F. Kennedy, and Vladimir Putin. Wallace premiered his no-holds-barred style in 1956 on his show Night Beat and brought it 60 Minutes.
