’60 Minutes’ Icon Mike Wallace Is Dead
Veteran journalist Mike Wallace, who appeared on the CBS news program “60 Minutes” from its first airing, has died.
Wallace died Saturday at the age of 93, CBS “Face the Nation” host Bob Schieffer announced Sunday morning on the program. He died at a care facility in New Haven, Conn., where he had been living in recent years.
Wallace, who was accused by the watchdog group CAMERA of having an Israel problem, retired from “60 Minutes” in 2006 after 38 seasons on the news program, but continued to contribute to the program and other CBS news shows.
During the course of his career, Wallace interviewed Yasir Arafat and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. During a 1989 interview with Arafat, Wallace allowed him to spout his anti-Israel views without questioning them. When he asked Arafat if he had renounced “military operations” inside Israel, Arafat responded “Any people who are facing occupation or oppression have the right to use all methods.” Wallace did not probe this with a follow-up question, CAMERA pointed out in a 2006 report called “Mike Wallace’s Middle East Problem.”
He interviewed Abba Eban, Israel’s ambassador to the United States, in 1958.
He was awarded 21 Emmy awards, five DuPont-Columbia journalism awards and five Peabody awards during his career.
Born Myron Leon Wallace in Brookline, Mass., to Russian Jewish parents Frank and Zina Wallace, who had shortened their family name from Wallechinsky, he graduated from the University of Michigan, where he worked for the Michigan Daily student newspaper and was a member of the Zeta Beta Tau fraternity. Wallace hosted several game shows in the 1950s.
His son, Chris Wallace, is the host of Fox News Sunday for the Fox News network.
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