Whatever Happened to Rather’s Partner? : New parent Connie Chung is enjoying life as she collects a CBS paycheck and waits for her network contract to run out.

The failure of the on-air “marriage” of Dan Rather and Connie Chung was one of the biggest media stories of 1995. And as critics reprise it in their year-end reviews, many viewers may wonder: Whatever happened to Connie Chung?

She has been off the air and publicly silent since abruptly being dropped from the “CBS Evening News” in May and refusing reassignment. But that does not mean she has not been busy.

“One door closed and another door opened,” Chung said in an interview. “What happened was a mitzvah, the Hebrew phrase for a good deed.”

The day after CBS executives announced that they were turning the evening newscast back to Rather and that Chung’s prime-time magazine series, “Eye to Eye,” was likely to be canceled because of low ratings, she and her husband, talk-show host Maury Povich, learned that they were going to become adoptive parents.

“The adoption came through literally the next day after CBS announced their decision,” Chung said. “Just a few weeks earlier, we had been told that an adoption was not going to work out.”

Chung, 48, and Povich, 56, are spending their first holiday season with their son, Matthew Jay Povich. “We’re having a wonderful time, enjoying the baby,” Povich said. The couple, who have been married since 1984, had tried for many years to have a baby and had been quietly trying to adopt a child over the past several years.

At the time of her departure, as charges were debated over whether CBS management had been sexist in its handling of the matter, several publications reported that Chung’s contract allowed the network not to pay her if she refused reassignment, which she did.

In fact, however, sources say CBS has been quietly paying Chung the remainder of her $2-million annual contract, which, like other pacts for star anchors, has standard “pay or play” provisions that mean if the anchor is not on the air, he or she is still paid. But former CBS owner Laurence Tisch initially did balk at paying Chung after she stopped working, the sources note.

Chung’s CBS contract runs until March, and she is not free to talk to other potential employers until that time. (It also apparently is part of her agreement with CBS that, after initially criticizing the network, Chung has made no other comment on her experience there.)

There has been speculation about whether another network would hire Chung or whether she might be more likely to go to cable or a syndicated show. She would not discuss the prospects other than to say, “I do want to go back to work.”

Meantime, Chung said, she already feels like one of the hosts on a morning news show.

“I’ve always thought that anchoring one of the early-morning news shows gives you a feeling of permanent sleep deprivation,” she said. “Now I know that all of the mothers of babies in America feel like morning news hosts!”