AVIGNON, France Oct 17 (AFP) - Pierre Salinger, press secretary to US presidents John F Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson died, aged 79, of a heart attack in a hospital in southern France Saturday and will be buried in the United States, his wife said early Sunday.
"Pierre died Saturday morning in Cavaillon hospital (Vaucluse region) where he had been hospitalised on Thursday. He had already been taken to hospital the previous week and a pacemaker was fitted," his French wife Nicole Salinger said by telephone from their home in the village of Le Thor near Avignon.
"He left the United States several years ago after the election of President George W. Bush and lived here in our inn," his wife added.
He will be buried, "at a date yet to be determined, in the Arlington military cemetery (in Virginia) where John F. Kennedy rests," she added.
His death was announced in the US by ABC news, for whom he had been a longtime European correspondent.
Pierre Salinger left the United States in February 2000, after Bush's inauguration, and bought a small 'auberge', or bed-and-breakfast hotel, in Le Thor, "where we were offering bed-and-breakfast. He really enjoyed meeting our guests," Nicole Salinger said.
The former journalist had in recent years suffered from aphasia, involving loss of speech. "Some people assumed, wrongly, that he was suffering from Alzheimer's disease," she added.
The couple also created an association which championed works of art aimed at "bringing France and the United States closer together, after all the anti-France campaign," in the US, she continued.
A mass celebrating his life will be held in the Holy Trinity chrurch, Georgetown, Washington before the burial.
Pierre Salinger was born in San Francisco to a French mother and German father.