The Inner Circle

While an army of collegians campaigned for Eugene McCarthy in New Hampshire and Wisconsin, a few key lieutenants determined the Senator's strategy. Blair Clark, 50, a polished, detached former newsman, is national campaign chairman and overall strategist. A classmate (Harvard '40) and friend of John F. Kennedy, Clark was head of CBS News (1961-64), then associate publisher of the New York Post (1965-66). Richard Goodwin, 36, one of the most talented New Frontier wordmen and a man of seemingly inexhaustible energy, lends the oratorical luster to many of McCarthy's speeches and is, besides, an effective organizer.

Jerome Eller, 42, McCarthy's longtime administrative assistant, is the candidate's closest adviser, although to outsiders he seems mainly busied with holding ths Senator's coat and seeing that he gets from one meeting to another. Curtis Gans, 30, a former United Press International reporter, is the chief tactician at the grass-roots level and the most important of the Mc-Carthyites in Wisconsin today. Seymour Hersh, 30, still another former newsman (he covered the Pentagon for the Associated Press), is press secretary, speechwriter—and an unexcelled master of profanity. A score of others do everything from dispersing funds to researching issues, but none of them can yet be considered part of the inner circle.

For all its intelligence and enthusiasm, the McCarthy organization suffers severely from a lack of professionalism. Clark is not a good campaign administrator, and Goodwin, the only man at the top who has been through a presidential campaign before, has given the campaign whatever order it has. Money, strangely enough, is not a very big handicap now. McCarthy's biggest problem for the long run is building a professional staff—and keeping it from Kennedy. Goodwin, a close friend of Bobby's, admits that he is "torn" between the two candidates, and no one would be surprised to see him shift camps after the Wisconsin primary. "I notice," quipped McCarthy last week, "that Dick Goodwin has a very large suitcase. He might have a change of clothes for another climate, but I'm not sure."