by Veronique Dupont
NEW YORK, Sept 2 (AFP) - Former president Bill Clinton will undergo heart bypass surgery next week, his wife, Senator Hillary Clinton, said Friday outside the New York City hospital where he had earlier been admitted with chest pains.
Doctors had earlier urged that the surgery be carried out as quickly as possible.
Television networks said Clinton, who became 58 in August, would need quadruple bypass surgery but this was not confirmed by his family or aides.
The ex-president was admitted to the New York Presbyterian Hospital-Columbia, which has one of the top cardiology units in the United States.
Clinton immediately received messages of goodwill from President George W. Bush and other world leaders.
"He went to our local hospital yesterday, complaining of some chest pains and shortness of breath," Hillary Clinton said earlier at the New York State Fair in Syracuse, which she left early to be with her husband.
"He said he felt fine and not to worry and he would see me at the fair, but his doctors asked him to come back early this morning for some additional tests."
The doctors "advised him to have bypass surgery and do it as soon as he could," she added.
Clinton first went to a hospital in Westchester county in the New York suburbs. He spent the night at his nearby home in Chappaqua but was told to return for additional tests Friday.
Secret Service agents were posted outside the Columbia-Presbyterian hospital. Television camera operators and dozens of well-wishers gathered outside.
Linda Rodriquez, a 62-year-old Puerto Rican retiree here to accompany a friend to a doctor's appointment at the hospital, stayed for three hours awaiting news on Clinton's condition.
"He was a good president," she said. "He's a good man."
President George W. Bush and Democratic presidential challenger John Kerry were informed of Clinton's illness.
Bush telephoned from Air Force One and told his predecessor that his prayers were with him, White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan said.
Speaking at an election rally in West Allis, Wisconsin, Bush said "he is in our thoughts and our prayers. We send him our best wishes for a swift and speedy recovery."
"We want to extend our wishes and our prayers" to Clinton, Kerry said at a rival rally in Newark, Ohio. "He is going to be fine."
British Prime Minister Tony Blair also sent a message of support, his office said.
Clinton has spent recent months promoting his best-selling autobiography "My Life." He keeps up a punishing schedule of international speaking engagements while wife Hillary pursues her political career as a US senator representing New York state.
The former president was at a book-signing in New Orleans, Louisiana, on Wednesday.
Clinton was one of the top speakers at the Democratic party national convention in Boston at the end of July, and the Kerry campaign had hoped he would make appearances to back Kerry's bid to unseat Bush in the November 2 election.
Clinton was president from 1993 until 2001 and became known for his love of hamburgers, though he was also a regular jogger.
As president he had a famously hearty appetite but had visibly lost weight since leaving office. He has reportedly followed a high-protein diet.
Four days before leaving office, Clinton was told he had a skin cancer. But the growth on his back was removed and easily treated. In 1996 he had a lesion removed from his nose.
He has also suffered from allergies.