Five Soviets Visit a Den of Capitalism

It was freezing in the Soviet Union late in January. Food was scarce in some places, and the forces of reaction seemed to be gaining.

These factors apparently did not account for the presence here in sweet and balmy San Francisco of five members of the Leningrad City Soviet, whose week of meetings and seminars culminated in an extraordinary luncheon in the plush dining room of Baker & McKenzie, which bills itself as the world’s biggest law firm. By the time it was over, good feelings had frankly run amok.

What else could happen when California capitalism meets Soviet realism? In retrospect, it probably wasn’t fair bringing these guys here without some kind of counseling. Vladimir F. Mironov, for example, is a liberal lawmaker and naval officer who loves his hometown, but Mikhail S. Gorbachev is having him transferred to Mur mansk, above the Arctic Circle. He was asked how he liked San Francisco.

“Von vord,” he enthused, in flavorful English. “Par-a-dise!”

It was quite a session. Aside from arms makers, nearly all the big California industries were represented. Take technology; breaking bread with the Russians were Craig Kelly, corporate counsel at National Semiconductor Corp., who said his company has been approached by a Russian state-owned enterprise about building a semiconductor plant in Leningrad, and Tom Theodoris, vice president for legal affairs at Oracle Systems Corp., who said the software maker has been doing business in the Soviet Union for three years.

Real estate? There was Grant Sedgwick, who looks like a movie mogul and puts up hotels and office buildings in Silicon Valley. Simon Furman, general manager of San Rafael-based East/West Exchange, does the same sort of thing in the Soviet Union; he addressed us in Russian. A guy from Metropolitan Life attended, and someone wondered if the Soviets might want life insurance. Ray Reynolds, publisher of California Lawyer magazine, offered to export some attorneys. (Baker & McKenzie has 1,500 worldwide, half again as much as the entire Moscow bar.) Mary Kay Kane, academic dean at UC Hastings College of the Law here, reported that hers is America’s third-largest law school.

Hollywood was present too, in the form of Derek Hart, president of Armand Hammer Productions. His company had been working in Leningrad on “Mother Russia,” a 10-hour, $24-million HBO miniseries of the sprawling family saga variety.

Hart suavely embodied the gap between making money here and in the Soviet Union. During lunch, the elegantly tailored executive with the British accent discreetly took a call on his lightweight pocket telephone. He later complained that in Leningrad, when the phones worked at all, long distance cost him $18 a minute.

(Hart also offers the Russians a lesson in capitalism’s pitfalls. After Armand Hammer died, Occidental Petroleum said it would “exit” unprofitable businesses, including Armand Hammer Productions, which lost $2 million in 1990.)

Toast followed upon toast, until finally Tim Tosta, the genial Baker & McKenzie partner who acted as host, realized: “Wait a minute, I think we just drank to lawyers.”

But that was OK. The visiting Leningrad legislators, lawyers all, were brought to California by the Lawyers Alliance for World Security (formerly the Lawyers Alliance for Nuclear Arms Control.) The group got a $100,000 grant from the MacArthur Foundation to help the Soviets inculcate the rule of law.

The visitors, all of them reformers, were an illustrious group. Mironov, for instance, is a legal scholar and human rights activist who’s written a history of duels.

Valery E. Krasnyansky, a law professor from Leningrad State University, said an opportunity had arisen for foreign investors, who now have legal rights equal to those of Soviet investors.

“There is no return to totalitarian times; it’s not possible,” he said, speaking before the full Soviet crackdown in Lithuania and the heightened role of the KGB in investigating business activities. “I’m an optimist.”

During their stay, the visitors attended a federal court hearing, met a prosecutor and a public defender, toured the police department, saw the sights, and ate and drank a good deal. They also heard learned presentations on welfare, environmental law and alternatives to trial. They toured San Francisco and even visited Marin County, across the Golden Gate Bridge, although they somehow didn’t get into any hot tubs.

Perhaps of particular interest, they attended a witty disquisition on bankruptcy law by attorney Frederick Wyle, a wry bear of a man who speaks a little Russian.

In the sky-lit Embarcadero Center conference room provided for the session by McCutchen, Doyle, Brown & Enersen, surrounded by aching blue vistas of the Bay, Aleksei I. Aleksandrov was asked about bankruptcy law in the Soviet Union.

“We have bankruptcy,” the legislator answered in deadpan Russian. “But no law.”