After Hersh's resignation a high McCarthy spokesman promised assembled reporters that "one of the top public relations outfits" would join the campaign to improve the press facilities. But, newsmen grmubled again on the night of President Johnson's withdrawal, when the Senator kept TV crews waiting for over an hour before he appeared for a scheduled press conference.

AFTER a particularly hard dav with the press, one McCarthy aide said that he liked some of the reporters covering the campaign, but then went on to generalize about the breed--"A bunch of cry-babies."

He was half right. The press undoubtedly magnified the problems of the McCarthy campaign by emphasizing those closest to them--the errors of the press staff--while ignoring the sometimes inefficient, but extensive student canvassing which brought the Senator's campaign to most Wisconsin voters.

Yet, if the reporters were "crybabies" it was principally because the McCarthy organization did a poor job of feeding them the Pablum which is the constant diet of most newsmen covering campaigns. Most reporters--particularly those from the wire services and the second-rate dailies--remain encased in the womb of the press bus or plane and file a stream of speech stories, color stories, and isolated voter reaction stories fed to them in press releases or by word of mouth by the candidate's press staff. In between deadlines, they gossip about politician, view the scenery, or ask around for the name of a good restaurant at the night's stop.

And this is what the candidate's press staff wants. The press is surrounded by the people who have nice things to say about the campaign. Those with complaints -- black leaders in the Milwaukee ghetto, in the case of Wisconsin--have a harder time reaching the reporters. When a crisis such as the Hersh resignation breaks, the campaign staff can fall back on the time-honored tradition of the "backgrounder"--a session in which a campaign aide gives newsmen a story which cannot be attributed except to "a high spokesman" or "sources close to..." "I don't want to make a public defense of the campaign," one such speaker began. "No, vou want to make an anonvmous public defense," one reporter familiar with the technique interjected.

Despite their talk about "something, new in American politics," the McCarthy organization did nothing to change this aspect of American politics. They just didn't use the old methods with the efficiency to which reporters had become accustomed. And so the occupants of the press bus sometimes bit the hand that usually feeds is so smoothly.