Mike Wallace is going off the clock.

The multiple Emmy-winning 60 Minutes journalist announced Tuesday he will be retiring from his post as a fulltime correspondent at the end of the current season. He has been a fixture on the pioneering newsmagazine since it premiered in 1968.

"I've often replied, when asked, 'I'll retire when my toes turn up,' " Wallace said in a statement. "Well, they're just beginning to curl a trifle, which means that, as I approach my 88th birthday [May 9], it's become apparent to me that my eyes and ears, among other appurtenances, aren't quite what they used to be. And the prospect of long flights to wherever in search of whatever are not quite as appealing."

He could have fooled us. Wallace did nearly 20 segments last season and has done six stories already this season, including a profile of Morgan Freeman and a report on Iraq war vets who lost limbs, proving that his perspective on whatever, wherever, is just as viable today as it was when he reported from Vietnam in the '60s. "I wouldn't know what else to do," he told the New York Times last year.

"It's hard for all of us to get used to," 60 Minutes executive producer Jeff Fager told reporters. "It's a sad day, but it's also a chance to celebrate an incredible legacy and an amazing guy."

Wallace announced three years ago that he was cutting back on stories and in the fall he relinquished his spot to Ed Bradley as the first face you see when the 60 Minutes clock starts ticking, but his versatility and probative interviewing technique never waned. During an interview last year with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Wallace remarked, "This isn't a real democracy, come on!"

The reporter who once asked Barbra Streisand why she had a reputation for "bitchery" hadn't lost his edge.

Wallace spent decades highlighting the trials and travails and ups and downs of democracies, dictatorships, athletes, artists, Hollywood royalty and actual royalty. From Ronald Reagan and JFK to Johnny Carson and Mikhail Baryshnikov, an encyclopedia's worth of personalities have had their lives investigated by Wallace. He also anchored the Peabody Award-winning series Biography from 1951 to 1961, covering the lives of historical figures such as Josef Stalin, Mark Twain and Babe Ruth.

"Mike Wallace is one of a few giants of broadcast journalism for whom a list of endless superlatives can't and don't do justice," CBS News President Sean McManus said in a statement. "Mike has completely embodied what good, tough, fair journalism should be over the course of his 60-plus years in the business. And he's broken more than his share of big stories along the way."

The estimable newsman joined CBS for four years in 1951 and returned in 1963 as a correspondent for CBS News. He helped found 60 Minutes in 1968 with executive producer Don Hewitt, who has compared Wallace to Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite as legends of CBS journalism.

Christopher Plummer played Wallace in 1999's The Insider, based on his 1995 60 Minutes report with tobacco company whistleblower Jeffrey Wigand (embodied by Russell Crowe in the film). The original segment was enveloped in controversy, with other news outlets criticizing 60 Minutes for leaving out some of the more damning information Wigand provided. The New York Times wrote that CBS had "betrayed the legacy of Edward R. Murrow" and Vanity Fair wrote its own expos? of the affair, entitled "The Man Who Knew Too Much."

Before Desperate Housewives and Grey's Anatomy dominated Sundays, 60 Minutes ruled. The newsmagazine was the most watched show of the 1979-1980 TV season and it remained a top 10 hit in the Nielsens for 23 seasons, from 1977 to 2000. It's still a top 20 show, thanks to familiar faces like Wallace.

"Mike Wallace has been the heart and soul of this broadcast since he and Don started it almost four decades ago," Fager said in a statement. "Millions and millions of Americans have tuned in to 60 Minutes on Sunday nights over all those years to see him in action and to find out what questions he would be asking each week."

A few years ago CBS ran an ad for 60 Minutes featuring the question, "What four words strike fear in the hearts of con men and rogues?" The answer?

"Mike Wallace is here."

Some things never change. Wallace, who won 20 Emmys during his career--including a Lifetime Achievement Emmy in 2003--has emphasized that partial retirement is his decision and not the network's. "CBS is not pushing me," he said. "I'll be in a comfortable office on the same floor--just around the corner from where I've holed up for the past 43 years--available, when asked, for whatever chore CBS News, 60 Minutes, the CBS Evening News have in store for me."

"Plus, longer vacations, of course."