MIKE Wallace under went triple-bypass heart surgery over the weekend.
Wallace, 89, took his first steps yesterday, just two days after undergoing the procedure in Manhattan, reportedly at Lenox Hill Hospital.
“Mike is recovering nicely,” a CBS News spokesman said yesterday. He quoted Wallace’s doctors as describing the surgery as “a great success.”
It’s unclear if the surgery was planned or if it was done immediately after a checkup revealed a problem.
Wallace was outfitted with a pacemaker over 20 years ago; that pacemaker was replaced before this most recent surgery.
Wallace, the oldest of the “60 Minutes” correspondents, has been semi-retired from CBS News since 2006, serving as a Correspondent Emeritus.
He does several reports a year for “60 Minutes,” most recently interviewing Roger Clemens regarding allegations in Major League Baseball’s Mitchell Report that Clemens used performance-enhancing drugs during his baseball career.
Wallace’s other high-profile interviews the past few years have included Jack Kevorkian and Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Wallace first joined CBS in 1951, left in 1955, and returned for good in 1963.