Woman Is Top Candidate for Surgeon General Post

WASHINGTON —  Dr. Antonia Novello, a public health service officer with the National Institutes of Health, is President Bush’s first choice to replace Dr. C. Everett Koop as surgeon general, Administration sources said Tuesday.

If confirmed, she would be the first woman to hold that office and the third Latino in a highly visible post in the Bush Adminstration.

One source at the Department of Health and Human Services said that Novello, 44, is “definitely anti-abortion,” and added: “She wouldn’t be named if she weren’t.”

A White House source said that Novello has not yet been offered the job, and that a final decision is at least 10 days away, pending completion of initial background checks. But the source added: “I would definitely say she is the leading candidate.”

Sources at the Department of Health and Human Services confirmed that Secretary Louis W. Sullivan has asked the White House to nominate Novello.

Novello is now deputy director of the NIH’s National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. She received good marks for a report on children and AIDS that she completed last year, and is generally well-liked within the department.

One HHS source said: “She’s acceptable, but she’s no Koop.”

Unlike Koop, whose confirmation was held up for nearly a year, Novello could be expected to win Senate approval easily. Lawmakers had accused Koop of being a right-wing religious zealot and feared that he would use the office to further his highly publicized crusade against abortion. Instead, Koop surprised and delighted his earlier critics and nettled the Ronald Reagan Administration with his unrelenting attack on tobacco and by speaking forthrightly and compassionately about AIDS.

Koop resigned in July, and Dr. James O. Mason was named acting surgeon general pending a permanent replacement.

President Bush’s personal physician, Dr. Burton Lee III, would like to be the next surgeon general, but he said that White House officials were insisting that candidates pass an “anti-abortion test.” That disqualified him, he said, because he is “strongly pro-choice.” Burton said he had suggested naming a woman to the post and “they really liked that idea.”

Novello, a pediatrician, is a native of Puerto Rico and a graduate of the University of Puerto Rico School of Medicine. She joined the NIH in 1978, and in 1982 earned a master’s degree from the Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health.

In 1982 and 1983 Novello, as an NIH congressional fellow, worked as physician-adviser to Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah), then chairman of the Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee. In her work for the committee she specialized in organ transplants and cigarette warning labels, according to an aide to Hatch.

“The senator’s got a lot of faith in her,” the aide said. “He thinks she’s going to do a bang-up job.”

Other reaction to Novello’s candidacy was mixed. One congressional source said he had found her “indecisive.” He added: “Her heart’s in the right place, but she’s not a forceful or strong advocate of children’s health. She doesn’t really break new policy. And she doesn’t fight back against the Administration. She . . . won’t publicly oppose them.”

Novello’s colleagues at NIH described her as “a women’s activist” and “a good-hearted person who is very interested in minority issues and in children.”

Staff writer James Gerstenzang contributed to this story.