NEW YORK (AP) – Bill Clinton was hospitalized with chest pains and shortness of breath Friday and will undergo heart bypass surgery in an operation that could sideline the former president at the height of the campaign for the White House.

An angiogram showed that Clinton, who turned 58 two weeks ago, had significant blockage in his heart arteries but did not suffer a heart attack, a doctor who performed the test told The Associated Press.

Clinton said he was looking forward to completing the surgery and resuming his normal activities.

Clinton’s wife, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, said that the former president would have surgery early next week and that no further information about his condition would be released until the operation is finished.

“I wanted to report to you that my husband is doing very well,” she said outside New York Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia, where the former president is being treated.

Sen. Clinton said her husband would “be back in fighting form before really very long after the surgery and the period of necessary recovery passes.” She praised the hospital’s medical staff and said: “We’re delighted we have good health insurance. That makes a big difference. And I hope someday everybody will be able to say the same thing.”

Clinton first went to a hospital Thursday after suffering the chest pains and shortness of breath, his office said a statement.

He spent the night at his Chappaqua home.

“We talked through the day and he said he felt fine and not to worry,” said Sen. Clinton.

On Friday, at the Westchester Medical Center, near his home, he was given an angiogram, in which dye is used to detect blockages or narrowing of coronary arteries. The test revealed “multivessel coronary artery disease, normal heart function and no heart attack,” said Dr. Anthony Pucillo, who performed the procedure.

Pucillo said the blockage was significant enough to warrant an operation.

After the angiogram, “He stopped and looked and me, put out his hand and said, ‘Thank you, God bless you,”‘ said Donna Florio-Bronen, a nurse at the hospital. “He looked great.”

In Little Rock, Ark., Clinton’s mother-in-law, Dorothy Rodham, said Friday that Clinton had called her with news of his chest pains. “He sounded wonderful as usual and very upbeat as he always is,” she said. “I just told him how much I love him.”

Clinton also called his stepfather, Dick Kelley, at his Hot Springs, Ark., home, Kelley said. “He’s very gung-ho and optimistic about what’s going to happen,” Kelley said.

Best wishes came in from Kerry and President Bush.

“He’s going to be fine,” Kerry said at a rally in Newark, Ohio. “But every single one of us wants to extend to him our best wishes, our prayers and our thoughts and I want you all to let a cheer out and clap that he can hear all the way to New York.”

Bush, at a campaign stop in West Allis, Wis., sent along “best wishes for a swift and speedy recovery.”

Good wishes also came from Harlem.

“I’m going to go home, and I’m going to get my Bible, and there’s something I’m going to read for him,” said Fred Johnson, a retiree who lives near Clinton’s office.

—

Associated Press Writers Marc Humbert and Jim Fitzgerald contributed to this report.

AP-ES-09-03-04 2219EDT