The laughter went flat. The smiles froze before they had time to disappear. In the back of the Ambassador Hotel ballroom, David Steiner couldn't tell what was happening. But a change in mood raced through the crowd like an electrical charge, arcing from face to face.
Sen. Robert F. Kennedy had just finished his victory speech after winning the California primary and exited through a door near the podium. It was just after midnight on June 5, 1968.
At 25, Steiner, who left his job at the Justice Department to join the campaign, had never before felt so giddy with purpose.
Now an awful energy emerged from the closed door. He felt a rush of dread.
Steiner ran toward the door and found himself suddenly smashed against it in the pandemonium. Women in straw boater hats cried. Men covered their mouths in shock. Steiner tried to pry the door open. But the crowd pushed against him. He saw one woman go under, another shoved hard against the wall.
Steiner dashed to the microphone where Kennedy had just spoken.
"Is there a doctor in the house?" he asked. His voice quaked. "Would a doctor come right here?"
In desperation, people asked him what happened. Steiner didn't have any information. He was just trying to help anyone who might have been injured in the frenzy. But the movement in the room portended a greater calamity.
Television cameras zoomed in on him as if he were a spokesman, capturing his face forever in that moment.
And then, the cavernous room was nearly empty. The Klieg lights were gone. Steiner was sitting on the stage. Now he knew that Kennedy had been shot in the head and rushed to the hospital. He felt that if he stepped off the stage he would free fall into an abyss.
All his life, Steiner had been on a track somewhere, focused and striving. But like so many young people whose trajectories converged in that era's burst of idealism, the assassination of Kennedy 40 years ago today would set him adrift.
Steiner grew up in Encino. His dad owned a patio furniture business. David played basketball, football and golf at Birmingham High School and was obsessed with girls and movies.
His parents were of a generation that hunkered down and tried to survive world events -- not seek to change them. His mother was stoic. His father had a salesman's view of human relations. He spent his money on sports cars and imported shoes, drank Scotch and didn't come home much.
