OS ANGELES - Four decades ago, the future began here.
When the Democrats gathered in Los Angeles 40 summers ago to nominate John F. Kennedy, movie stars were not prominent in elections, conventions were not choreographed, protests were not a visible element of politics, and the phrase ''New Frontier'' was not part of the American lexicon. By the time the Democrats left town in 1960, all that had changed.
And so tonight's appearance of a parade of Kennedys on the Los Angeles convention stage is a tribute to the family that symbolizes the Democrats' triumphs and tragedies, a reminder of the last time a Democratic convention opened amid any suspense - and a measure of how much the party, the city, and the country have changed in 40 tumultuous years.
Since 1960, conventions have lost much of their importance. Television has used these peculiarly American institutions to grow powerful in politics and then has shunned them as it grew bored with politics. The Democrats have gone from a party that was rooted in the South but nominated candidates from the North to a party that is rooted in the North and nominates candidates from the South.
All week, as the technicians installed the computer equipment and the engineers wired the trailers with high-speed lines for dot-com communications companies - all of which was so far beyond the horizons of the New Frontier that no California dreamer dared contemplate it in 1960 - the shadow of the Kennedys has hung as heavy as the bright LA haze.
Here Joseph Kennedy made the Hollywood investments and contacts that would provide wealth and influence for his sons. Here John F. Kennedy would describe the New Frontier as ''not a set of promises'' but ''a set of challenges.'' Here Robert F. Kennedy would be assassinated in 1968 in the Ambassador Hotel, a Los Angeles landmark that would never be able to erase the stain of the senator's blood and would close in 1989.
But most of all, it is the unpredictable landscape of Kennedy's frontier that haunted the Democrats as they raced from breakfasts by poolside in Beverly Hills hostelries to receptions in back lots of Hollywood studios to floor demonstrations in the Staples Center.
When Kennedy, Adlai E. Stevenson, and Lyndon B. Johnson maneuvered for position in 1960, California had 31 television stations. Today it has 81 network affiliates alone. When the Democrats agonized over an attempt by Senator Sam J. Ervin Jr. to repudiate the party's civil rights plank, California had 256 wineries. Today it has 1,210. When the platform committee agreed to work to increase the minimum wage to $1.25, California had 6.6 million automobiles. Today it has 15.7 million. When the platform committee worried about the phantom ''missile gap'' with the Soviet Union, California had one surfing magazine. Today it has nine.
When the Democrats vowed to overhaul the nation's immigration laws, Huntington Park in southeast Los Angeles County was 6 percent Latino. Now it is 92 percent Latino. And when Robert Kennedy negotiated with Johnson about joining the Democratic ticket, California had 15.9 million people. Today it has well over 34 million.
In those days, Shirley MacLaine (who would emerge as a prominent political activist), Frank Sinatra (whose ties to Kennedy would cause consternation later), Peter Lawford (a Kennedy brother-in-law), and Janet Leigh (who danced with Kennedy at a party Lawford held at his beach house) were a celebrity honor guard for the Kennedy forces, symbols of Hollywood's willingness to sidle up to politics after the frosty days of the McCarthy era. This week President Clinton, whose Hollywood connections include Barbra Streisand and Sharon Stone, spoke to an audience that included Cher and Diana Ross.
In those days, the Socialist Michael Harrington and the civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. mounted demonstrations to bring attention to poverty and racism, the first time major protests were held at a national convention. This week the protests are over trade policy, campaign-finance reform, and oil-company profits.
In any ordinary year, Kennedy's call to cross the New Frontier - the candidate, surrounded by his parents and the eight disappointed contenders for the nomination, delivered his acceptance speech outdoors as the sun set - would be the most memorable element of his remarks. But in 2000, when the Democrats are about to nominate a Jew to be vice president, the sixth and seventh paragraphs of Kennedy's acceptance speech are particularly poignant.
''I am fully aware of the fact that the Democratic Party, by nominating someone of my faith, has taken on what many regard as a new and hazardous risk - new at least since 1928,'' Kennedy said. Then he added:
''I hope that no American, considering the really critical issues facing this country, will waste his franchise by voting either for me or against me solely on account of my religious affiliation. It is not relevant, I want to stress, what some other political or religious leader may have said on this subject. It is not relevant what abuses may have existed in other countries or in other times. It is not relevant what pressures, if any, might conceivably be brought to bear on me. I am telling you now what you are entitled to know: that my decisions on every public policy will be my own - as an American, a Democrat, and a free man.''
Kennedy came to Los Angeles in July 1960 with 600 delegates, about 25 percent short of what he needed for nomination. His political team - his brother, Kenneth P. O'Donnell, Pierre Salinger, and Lawrence F. O'Brien - set up camp in Room 8315 of the Biltmore Hotel. The group worked to provide the remainder of support for the Massachusetts senator, using timeworn convention tactics and old-line pressure (for the last time, it turned out) even as their nominee forged a political style that would be regarded as modern even four decades later.
That's why tonight's selection of speakers seems so evocative. There is Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg, the last surviving child of the president. There is Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, the last brother. There is the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, the most prominent link to King and the civil rights activists of the 1960s. There is Kathleen Kennedy Townsend of Maryland, who may become the first Kennedy to win a governorship. There is her brother, Robert Kennedy Jr., who is to speak this afternoon about the environment. And yesterday there was Representative Patrick J. Kennedy, Democrat of Rhode Island, who is the first Kennedy to climb the leadership rungs of the House. There is the past and the future, all mixed together, an alchemy of the Democrats' greatest dreams and heartbreaks.
Forty years ago, the future began here. We are still living with it.
