Will veteran TV newsman Mike Wallace cut back on his `60 Minutes' workload?

NEW YORK (AP) _ As his 84th birthday approaches, ''60 Minutes'' newsman Mike Wallace says he plans to cut his workload in half. <br><br>``The time has come,'' Wallace said Monday.

Monday, April 8th 2002, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

NEW YORK (AP) _ As his 84th birthday approaches, ''60 Minutes'' newsman Mike Wallace says he plans to cut his workload in half.

``The time has come,'' Wallace said Monday. ``Come on, for Christ's sake, I'm an old man.''

Some of his colleagues will believe it when they see it. Wallace acknowledged that he's made the same promise for the last couple of years in a row. The CBS newsman turns 84 on May 9.

``My wife is getting bored by my saying it and not delivering,'' he said. ``She figures, let's be companions instead of seeing each other only occasionally.''

Wallace said he's getting ground down by all the travel involved in his job, particularly since he doesn't check baggage and has to lug his things through airports.

He's kept a high profile lately, interviewing Nobel Prize-winning mathematician John Forbes Nash, the subject of the movie ``A Beautiful Mind,'' and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

Wallace has done 15 stories so far this television season, more than any other ''60 Minutes'' correspondent.