Couldn’t Stomach It: “60 Minutes” inquisitor Mike...

Couldn’t Stomach It: “60 Minutes” inquisitor Mike Wallace says his battle with depression took him to reptilian depths but he’s much better now. Wallace--snared in the 1984 suit by William Westmoreland, the Vietnam War-era general, over CBS’ reports on inflated enemy casualty figures--said Wednesday in Baltimore: “You sit there for the first two months and hear yourself called a liar and a cheat day after day and you begin to feel lower than a snake’s belly.”

* Misery: A woman is suing author Stephen King in Trenton, N.J., claiming the horror novelist plagiarized from her writings and based a character in “Misery” on her. Anne Hiltner wants damages, a share in book profits and the book off store shelves. King’s attorney, noting that the woman has been writing to King for a decade, said angrily: “Nothing about what she does surprises me.”

* Shot Down: A faculty group at Texas A & M University in College Station, Tex., said Norman Schwarzkopf is a great general but that doesn’t mean he’s an educator. The Operation Desert Storm leader, retiring from the Army this summer, has been sought by some as university chancellor. “I have nothing against Gen. Schwarzkopf,” faculty senate chairman Bill Stout said Wednesday. “But he simply doesn’t meet the faculty senate’s No. 1 criterion for the person who should ultimately fill the post--high academic credentials.”

* The New Reagan: A new portrait of Ronald Reagan hangs in the White House foyer, in a switch requested by the former President. The old painting showed Reagan standing, a somewhat odd grin on his face. It was banished because some Reagan supporters “thought the original portrait was not a good likeness,” said a Reagan spokesman. The new portrait, an oil by Everett Raymond Kinstler, was put up Tuesday and shows Reagan seated on a White House balcony, the Jefferson Memorial in the background.