Washington Bureau WASHINGTON In abusiness which is well-populated with pontifi-cators and posturers, Frank McGea was unique.

I suspect that people all over the country felt a personal loss when the deatn of the host of the NBC-TV "Today" program was announced.

I know I did. His professional excellence speaks for itself, but let me tell you a little bit about him as a person.

I first knew Frank In the early 1950's as "Mack Rogers," his broadcast name when he was a reporter for WKY-TV in Oklahoma City.

In a few years he shot to stardom as an ace network newsman. Unlike some, he never forgot where he came from. I think the next time I ran acrosi Frank was in 1958 at Cape Canaveral, Fla. It was the time of the sputtering Vanguard satellite program, when the United States was frantically attempting to catch up with the Soviets' Sputniks.

One afternoon there was a. long "hold," as space scientists tried to find the gremlins in the space machinery. Frank and I found ourselves at one of the many Cocoa Beach watering holes.

We talked for several hours. As the afternoon wore on, I began to get apprehensive about the chores that lay ahead. But Frank, who was to go in front of a live camera that evening and smoothly describe the event without benefit of the hindsight that we pad and pencil types enjoyed, seemed oblivious to pressure.

He just wanted to talk about Oklahoma, politics in Washington and mutual acquaintances. As he advanced to superstar status, he was always the same when we chanced to meet at a space shot, or a national convention or a presidential campaign.

In the spring of 1972, en President Nixon's trip to the summit conference in Moscow, I heard my namo called across the hubbub of the International press lounge in the In-tourist Hotel. It was Frank McGee, beckoning me Into a group of his electronic news colleagues. He wanted to talk about Oklahoma, to their complete bewilderment.

As I said in the beginning, Frank was unusual. Too many in his business, and perhaps mine, gradually grow a shell or pretentiousness as a protection against being upstaged or put down by friend or foe. ' I'm thinking about a CBS newsman, no longer with the network, who enjoyed huge popularity in the JFK days. He and I were among four "pool" reporters on a presidential trip to Oklahoma. I was new. The others were White House regulars AP, UPI and my network "friend."

(When we boarded the presidential plane, I attempted to defer to him let him have tho window seat. He scathingly let me know that I was out of line. (The window seat was for me. The aisle seat was for him, because It gave one greater access to any White House staffers who might wander through the plane.)

Such are the little irritations of the news business, or any other business. Frank McGee was one of those who retained a certain courtliness we don't run across much anymore. With the disclosure that he had been suffering from bone cancer for several years, 1 now understand Frank's strange, last-minute turn down of an Invitation last year to the annual gridiron dinner in Washing-

His excuse, tho afternoon of the white-tie affair, seemed flimsy at the time, and I was a little ticked. It becomes visible now that even then ho was probably suffering sporadic pain which forced Mm to conserve himself at times. Too bad to lose a man like him. Even we who crossed his path only occasionally will miss him.