Clinton’s Choice for Surgeon General to Speak Out : Nomination: Henry Foster Jr. will defend his record in TV interview. Unusual move is White House effort to counter abortion controversy.

In a highly unusual step, the White House sought Wednesday to regain the initiative in the battle over Henry Foster Jr., President Clinton’s nominee to be surgeon general, by clearing him to speak out publicly in defense of his abortion record and professional history.

Foster consented, with White House clearance, to be interviewed Wednesday night on ABC-TV’s “Nightline” program and was considering other interviews as well. “We wanted an opportunity to have it explained by the person who could explain it best,” said a White House official.

Such public appearances break with longstanding tradition. Out of deference to the authority of the Senate, presidential nominees usually keep silent until they appear before the committee considering their nomination. Indeed, on Wednesday, Clinton’s nominee to head the CIA, retired Gen. Michael P.C. Carns, declined to answer questions for just such a reason.

Yet Administration officials said they have come to believe that Foster, a Tennessee obstetrician-gynecologist, needed to be allowed to speak in order to shift the focus from his abortion record to what they consider the more relevant issue: his life’s work in public health.

He “makes a very good impression,” a senior official said of Foster, former dean of Meharry Medical College in Nashville and a longtime crusader against teen-age pregnancy.

The Administration is counting on its hunch that many senators--including Republicans--do not want to focus on the abortion issue because it deeply divides both parties. One sign of that unease came Wednesday, when Sen. Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), who has wavered on the nomination, said he does not think that Foster should be judged solely on his abortion record.

Foster came under attack Friday, one day after his nomination, when abortion foes released a 1978 hearing transcript suggesting that he had conducted many more abortions than he had indicated. On Tuesday, anti-abortion activists were talking about Foster’s involvement in a clinical trial of drugs aimed ultimately at enabling women to induce their own abortions.

Foster has insisted that he has performed no more than a dozen abortions during his career, most prompted by concerns about the health of the mothers.

White House officials insisted Wednesday that they have no doubts about Foster’s credibility, even as a team of aides from the White House and the Department of Health and Human Services continued to pore over records of his practice. Clinton continued to stand behind his nominee, saying: “I believe he should be confirmed and I believe he will.”

Yet while Administration officials insisted that the campaign was a sign of their intention to fight, such plans have not always signaled that strategy.

On June 2, 1993, C. Lani Guinier, Clinton’s nominee to head the Justice Department’s civil rights division, went on “Nightline” to defend her record. The next day, the President abruptly pulled her nomination, saying that her views on fundamental civil rights issues did not square with his own.

Also Wednesday, the White House offered its most sweeping acknowledgment of its blunder in the Foster nomination--failing to understand the political significance of the abortion issue for the nomination.

“There’s no one on staff who would say that we served the President and the nominee as best we could,” said White House Press Secretary Mike McCurry. “We should have done a better job.”

On Capitol Hill, more than 100 Planned Parenthood representatives from around the country, calling themselves “the Foster Truth Squad,” lobbied senators on Foster’s behalf.

Many GOP senators continue to pronounce Foster’s nomination in trouble while others, including some Democrats, called for fuller disclosure about his career.