Tumor-stricken Novak retires from column gig

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Conservative political columnist Robert Novak, who was diagnosed last month with a "dire" brain tumor, has retired from his position with the Chicago Sun Times, the paper reports."The details are being worked out with the doctors this week, but the tentative plan is for radiation and chemotherapy," Novak said.The Evans-Novak column was first distributed by Publishers Newspaper Syndicate on May 15, 1963, with the New York Herald-Tribune, the flagship newspaper. When the Herald-Tribune folded in 1966, the Chicago Sun-Times became their home newspaper.

After revealing his brain tumor diagnosis last week, Novak initially said he hoped to be able to return to work soon. Monday's decision to end his run as one of Washington's most well known conservatives indicates the cancer may be worse than he originally thought.

“I will be suspending my journalistic work for an indefinite but, God willing, not too lengthy period," Novak said in a statement released July 28.

After more than four decades in Washington, Novak built a Rolodex of sources throughout the conservative political establishment, with more than a few Democrats delivering information to the journalist, as well.

In recent years, Novak has become best known for his role in the leak of former CIA agent Valerie Plame's identity. Novak fingered former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, who the columnist described as not having a political ax to grind, as the primary source for his July 14, 2003, column that first publicly identified Plame, who was the wife of administration critic Joseph Wilson, a former ambassador.

An investigation into who leaked Plame's name later resulted in Lewis "Scooter" Libby, a former top aide to Vice President Dick Cheney, being convicted of lying and obstructing the probe. The trial revealed that Libby had leaked Plame's name to New York Times reporter Judith Miller.

Last week Novak hit a pedestrian on a Washington street with his car but did not stop immediately and later said he was unaware he had hit the man.

With wire reports

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