Clinton To Undergo Emergency Heart Surgery

Taken To Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital In New York City

Sen. Hillary Clinton Was At An Event In Syracuse

Sep 3, 2004 11:52 am US/Central

CBS News has learned that former President Clinton was hospitalized on Friday in New York City after complaining of chest pains.

A source close to Mr. Clinton tells CBS News that Mr. Clinton complained of chest pains Thursday night and was taken to a hospital near his home in Chappaqua, N.Y.

Doctors, according to our source, found a blockage. Mr. Clinton is now in the New York Presbyterian hospital in Manhattan.

The New York Times reports on its Web site that Mr. Clinton had a heart attack. CBS News has not independently confirmed that.

Mr. Clinton’s wife, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., was attending an event in Syracuse, N.Y., when the news of her husband’s condition broke.

Clinton, who is 58, struggled with his weight during his presidency but has slimmed down since leaving office.

In July, the former president addressed the Democratic convention in Boston.

“We Democrats want to build a world and an America of shared responsibilities and shared benefits. We want a world with more global cooperation where we act alone only when we absolutely have to,” he said. “We think the role of government should be to give people the tools to create the conditions to make the most of their own lives. And we think everybody should have that chance.”

He appeared on the “Late Show with David Letterman” in August to promote his biography, but much of his talk was about the 2004 presidential race.

“Of all the people I dealt with in Congress,” Mr. Clinton said of Democratic nominee John Kerry, “he cared the most about trying to find programs that would keep young, inner-city minority kids out of trouble and out of jail and in school.”

Update (thanks to Fiat Lux)

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The William J. Clinton Foundation

55 West 125th St.

New York, NY 10027