'60 Minutes' veteran Mike Wallace to retire
Last Updated: Tuesday, March 14, 2006 | 5:23 PM ET
CBC News
Veteran news reporter Mike Wallace, who helped launch 60 Minutes in 1968, has announced he will retire this spring.
The 87-year-old journalist, who has often said he would retire "when my toes turn up," said Tuesday that his toes were "beginning to curl a trifle."
"As I approach my 88th birthday, it's become apparent to me that my eyes and ears, among other appurtenances, aren't quite what they used to be," the confrontational broadcast journalist said in a statement. Wallace turns 88 in May.
Mike Wallace announced Tuesday that he would retire from '60 Minutes,' the groundbreaking newsmagazine he helped start in 1968, at the end of the current season.
(AP file photo)
Jeff Fager, the executive producer of 60 Minutes, paid tribute to Wallace, calling him "the heart and soul of this broadcast since he and Don [Hewitt] started it almost four decades ago."
For years, Wallace has claimed he was cutting back on his stories for the landmark newsmagazine show. He emphasized Tuesday that CBS was not forcing him out the door and that he would still have "a comfortable office on the same floor" at the network.
Wallace began developing his tough interviewing style on the New York local news show Night Beat. He also did a stint as a game show host and made some cigarette commercials but devoted himself to news full-time after the death of his son in 1963.
The list of Wallace's interview subjects reads like a who's who of important figures of the 20th century: Malcolm X, retired U.S. Gen. William Westmoreland, former U.S. presidents such as John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan, international leaders such as Deng Xiaoping and Ayatollah Khomeini and such entertainers as Johnny Carson, Barbra Streisand and Itzhak Perlman.
In 1998, he provoked a national debate when he interviewed euthanasia advocate Jack Kevorkian and showed footage of the doctor injecting lethal drugs into a terminally ill patient.
Two years ago, he made the news again but not for his journalism. In August 2004, Wallace was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct when he and his driver had a minor verbal clash with city inspectors outside a New York restaurant. The charges were dropped just a few weeks later.
Wallace said he will step down this spring, at the end of the current season of 60 Minutes, but will remain available to CBS for occasional reporting as a "correspondent emeritus."
