Dan Rather filed a $70 million lawsuit against CBS and his former bosses yesterday, claiming they made him a “scapegoat” for a discredited story about President Bush’s military service during the Vietnam War.

The 75-year-old Mr. Rather, whose final months were clouded by controversy over the story, said the actions of the defendants damaged his reputation and cost him significant financial loss.

The lawsuit, filed in state Supreme Court in Manhattan, claims the network intentionally botched the aftermath of the story about Mr. Bush’s time in the Texas Air National Guard and had Mr. Rather take the fall to “pacify” the White House. He was removed from his job at “CBS Evening News” in March 2005.

Besides CBS Corp., the suit names a former CBS parent company, Viacom Inc., CBS President and CEO Leslie Moonves, Viacom chairman Sumner Redstone, and Andrew Heyward, former president of CBS News. The suit seeks $20 million in compensatory damages and $50 million in punitive damages.

“These complaints are old news, and this lawsuit is without merit,” a CBS spokesman, Dana McClintock, said. Viacom had no comment.

Mr. Rather narrated a September 2004 report saying that Mr. Bush had disobeyed orders and shirked some of his duties during his National Guard service and that a commander felt pressured to sugarcoat Mr. Bush’s record.

In his lawsuit, Mr. Rather maintains that the story was true, but that if any aspect of the broadcast wasn’t accurate, he was not responsible for the errors.

The story relied on four documents, supposedly written by Mr. Bush’s commander in the Texas Air National Guard, the late Lieutenant Colonel Jerry Killian. Critics questioned the documents’ authenticity and suggested they were forged.

A CBS review determined the story was neither fair nor accurate. CBS fired the story’s producer and asked for the resignation of three executives because it could not authenticate documents used in the story, and Mr. Rather was forced out of the anchor chair he had occupied for 24 years.

Mr. Rather’s lawsuit says he was forced to apologize, although “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.”

By making Mr. Rather apologize publicly, “CBS intentionally caused the public and the media to attribute CBS’ alleged bungling of the episode to Mr. Rather,” the lawsuit claimed. As a result, some called the event “Rathergate.”

He also claimed that after removing him as anchor of the “CBS Evening News,” the network gave him fewer and less important assignments and little airtime on “60 Minutes” and “60 Minutes II.”

At the time, Mr. Rather was making $6 million a year, the lawsuit says.

Mr. Rather claimed in the suit that his departure was ultimately caused by Viacom Chairman Redstone, who found it best for the company to curry favor with the Bush administration by damaging Mr. Rather. An “enraged” Mr. Redstone said the newsman and anyone associated with him had to go, according to the lawsuit.