Confirmation Hearing for Foster to Limit Testimony : Senate: Format spares Administration officials from any possible embarrassment over ‘bungled’ nomination for surgeon general.

The senator who will preside over hearings on the nomination of Henry W. Foster Jr. to be surgeon general has decided to exclude outsiders from testifying, a step that should enable Foster to describe his career in a relatively dispassionate setting.

The decision to limit witnesses, made by Sen. Nancy Landon Kassebaum (R-Kan.), head of the Labor and Human Resources Committee, is in keeping with the panel’s history of allowing testimony only from a nominee and perhaps a few senators. No decision has been made on whether any senators will testify.

Kassebaum’s move will allow Administration officials to avoid the embarrassment of having to respond to bipartisan criticism that it bungled the nomination process by failing to provide a prompt, full account of Foster’s record on abortion.

At the same time, barring any outside witnesses reduces the prospect that the hearings, expected to begin in about a month, will be dominated by a highly charged debate over abortion. The White House and Foster are confident that they can win such a debate, which would be expected to divide abortion-rights and anti-abortion elements of the Republican Party.

Kassebaum met privately with Foster on Thursday but she declined to be interviewed afterward. Her decision to allow only Foster to testify was confirmed by her aides.

Foster also met Thursday with Sens. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md.) and Arlen Specter (R-Pa.).

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A moderate who believes in a woman’s right to choose an abortion, Specter has been as vocal as most Democrats in urging the committee to give Foster a chance to be heard. “No nominee for surgeon general ought to be disqualified because the nominee has performed abortions, however many,” Specter said. “And that is because abortions are medical procedures which are authorized under the United States Constitution.”

Specter disagreed, however, with Kassebaum’s decision to exclude other witnesses from testifying, saying that Administration officials who handled the nomination process should be heard from to resolve “the conflicting statements” over the precise number of abortions he performed.

Foster’s nomination was enveloped by controversy as inconsistent figures emerged for the number of abortions he has performed over a 38-year career as an obstetrician-gynecologist.

Foster has said that his records show he has performed 39, but his critics now contend--and he has denied--that he may have performed as many as 700 abortions.