HOME-FRONT WATCH : Foreign Takeover?

It’s finally possible to start compiling a list of those things and places that Americans treasure. Office buildings--even venerable digs like Rockefeller Center and its skating rink--don’t make it. Neither do golf courses like Pebble Beach.

But at the very top of the treasure list is Yosemite National Park, high in the Sierra Nevadas, whose tall trees and rugged slopes were spared by John Muir, California’s pioneer environmentalist.

This tidbit of cultural anthropology has emerged as a sidelight to the negotiations on a possible takeover of MCA Inc. by Japan’s Matsushita Electric Industrial Co.

Among MCA’s global holdings is the Yosemite Park & Curry Co., which has the hotel and restaurant concession in Yosemite. And according to the National Park Service, the idea that a Japanese company might wind up running things at the park has provoked a deluge of angry mail from Americans.

We suspect public reaction would be negative to the “sale” of a place like Yosemite to any foreign interest, but certainly the fact that a Japanese company is involved feeds the anxiety some Americans feel. Imagine the Japanese reaction if an American fast-food company were to announce plans to put a hamburger or pizza parlor at the base of Mt. Fuji. That probably wouldn’t go over too well, either.

But there are some indications that Matsushita is sensitive to national treasures and would not be interested in the Yosemite concession. Storms pass swiftly in Yosemite. This one probably will be no different.