WASHINGTON -- After meeting with Supreme Court nominee Harriet E. Miers, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter yesterday said she told him that she believes there is a right to privacy in the U.S. Constitution, an underpinning of a woman's right to have an abortion, and that two key privacy cases were rightly decided -- which he considered to be significant factors in determining her judicial philosophy.

Later yesterday, however, he rescinded that view.

In an hour and 40 minute conversation with Ms. Miers as she made Capitol Hill rounds yesterday, Mr. Specter said she had told him that she believed two landmark privacy cases -- the 1965 Griswold v. Connecticut case, upholding married couples' right to use contraception, and the 1972 Eisenstadt v. Baird case, giving unmarried people that same right -- were correctly decided.

"She answered my questions on right to privacy, and she said she believes there is a right to privacy in the Constitution, and she backs Griswold, and she backs Eisenstadt," the Pennsylvania Republican said.

Asked whether her answers had given him a window into her view of Roe v. Wade, the key decision legalizing abortion, Mr. Specter said, "It's relevant but not determinative."

But hours later -- after a White House spokesman had disputed the senator's characterization of Ms. Mier's comments about the two cases -- Mr. Specter's spokesman issued a highly unusual retraction, stating that the nominee had called the senator, who has a reputation for precision, to tell him that he had misinterpreted her remarks.

"In their meeting this afternoon, Sen. Specter thought Ms. Harriet Miers said she agreed with Griswold v. Connecticut and there was a right to privacy in the Constitution," spokesman William Reynolds said in the e-mail clarification. "After Sen. Specter commented on that to the news media, Ms. Miers called him to say that he misunderstood her, and that she had not taken a position on Griswold or the privacy issue. Sen. Specter accepts Ms. Miers' statement that he misunderstood what she said."

Still, the retraction seemed a step too far. White House spokesman Allen Abney said in an interview late yesterday that when Mr. Specter asked Ms. Miers whether the Constitution held a right to privacy, she responded, "Yes, the Liberty Clause does that."

The conversation about Ms. Miers' beliefs about privacy rights comes amid an uproar among some conservatives, who have objected to her selection because they question her qualifications and lack of a clearly conservative record.

The split among Republicans, even among conservatives, has led to conflicting interpretations by friends and former colleagues about what she believes. That has led senators on both sides to underscore that what Ms. Miers says in her confirmation hearings will be even more important because her record is unsupported by reams of documents.

Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., a liberal Judiciary Committee member who also met with the nominee yesterday, expressed disappointment that she had not been more forthcoming. He said she refused to disclose whether she believed that the court had been correct in two privacy-rights cases: Griswold and a 1923 case, Meyer v. Nebraska, which struck down a law that barred teaching foreign languages in schools because it unconstitutionallly infringed on parents' liberties to choose what their children should learn.

"My first conversation with [just-seated new Chief Justice] John Roberts was far more illuminating," Mr. Schumer said after his meeting with Ms. Miers. Overall, "she offered very, very little in terms of her own experience in government and very, very little on her judicial philosophy. To be very honest with you, I have no idea what it is."

But Mr. Schumer said she did assure him that she had not revealed her views on the Roe v. Wade case to anyone, despite rampant speculation that the White House has sought to reassure conservatives that she staunchly opposes abortion. "She said no one can speak for me on Roe v. Wade," he said.

Another area of tension emerging is how much Ms. Miers can reveal about Bush administration policies she helped to shape while White House counsel, a role she assumed in February, and in two prior roles -- as assistant to the president and staff secretary from 2001 to 2003, and as deputy chief of staff from 2003 to 2005. Both Mr. Schumer and Mr. Specter pressed her on that yesterday. But the New York senator said she "more or less indicated that she would not really want to discuss anything that she has done in the White House, except very generally."

Mr. Specter and the judiciary panel's ranking Democrat, Sen. Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, are expected to announce a hearings schedule as soon as today. Mr. Schumer yesterday said Republicans were pressing for a Nov. 7 start date.