Specter’s Brain Tumor Removed

PHILADELPHIA —  Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), best known for his tough questioning of Anita Faye Hill and proposing the single-bullet theory in the John F. Kennedy assassination, underwent surgery Monday to remove a brain tumor.

Doctors who performed the 2 1/2-hour operation at University of Pennsylvania Hospital said all initial signs indicate the growth was benign. “The senator is awake and talking and appears in good spirits and neurologically normal,” Specter’s son, Shanin, said.

Shanin Specter said the growth apparently was a meningioma, a slow-growing, hard tumor that is rarely cancerous.

The 2-inch tumor was attached to the skull behind the senator’s forehead on the left side, which is less threatening than a growth actually on the brain, Shanin Specter said.

The tumor was discovered Friday at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., during an imaging test that Specter wanted because of pains in his face and a tightness in his collarbone area, his son said.

Specter, 63, is remembered for his cross-examination of Hill during the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings for the U.S. Supreme Court. He also was as assistant counsel to the Warren Commission that investigated the Kennedy assassination.