Coup Clouds Future of O.C. Firms’ Soviet Ventures : Investment: Local businesses with a stake in fledgling enterprises in the Soviet Union view political developments with a mixture of fear and hope.

While some Orange County companies reacted with dismay as the crisis in the Soviet Union unfolded Monday, others voiced hope that the formation of a strong central government could eventually bring some order to future U.S.-Soviet business dealings.

Although no local businesses have extensive dealings in the Soviet Union, a number of companies have fledgling joint ventures there. Other companies have taken a cautious approach toward establishing business ties with the Soviet Union, hoping for a more stable political and economic situation there.

After Sunday’s ouster of Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev, however, it seemed that the worst fears of some local companies might be coming true.

Outside the hotel-office complex in Moscow where President Bush had visited a few weeks earlier, tanks took up positions Sunday evening PDT as guests and employees scrambled to find out what was happening. The complex--the first Western-managed hotel in the Soviet Union--is a joint venture of an Irvine developer, the Radisson hotel chain and the Soviet tourism agency Intourist.

Frank Klare, Radisson’s general manager, immediately contacted U.S. embassy officials in Moscow, who instructed him to keep the hotel’s 22 U.S. employees and guests indoors. Anyone who had to go outside was advised to travel in pairs, Klare said.

The Soviet crisis comes at a terrible time for Irvine’s Americom International Corp. and its U.S. partner, Minneapolis-based Radisson Hotels International. The companies are involved in critical negotiations with Intourist, which has threatened to terminate the joint venture unless the U.S. partners meet certain financing commitments. In the last two weeks, the parties have been meeting in the United States and Moscow to iron out their differences.

“Everything is supposed to be consummated this week, but with this happening, we don’t know where we are,” said Stefan Harlan, Americom’s chief operating officer.

American executives at the hotel-business complex were instructed to register at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow for a possible evacuation if the crisis evolves into a military confrontation, Klare informed Radisson executives in a phone call Monday morning. A Radisson spokesman said Monday afternoon that no evacuation had yet been ordered.

Tom Bruinsma, chairman of the California-U.S.S.R. Trade Assn., a trade group with offices in Los Angeles and Santa Ana, said that although the crisis in the Soviet Unon is discouraging to U.S. companies, he believes that it is a transitory action.

“I don’t think this event will have a long-term negative effect on U.S.-Soviet trade relations,” he said.

An official of Beckman Instruments Inc., a Fullerton-based company with a small office in Moscow that sells biomedical instruments across the Soviet Union, said it was “too soon to make any firm statement on short-term future business prospects with the USSR.”

Nonetheless, the company has canceled all travel to the Soviet Union, said Art Torrellas, vice president of international operations for the company’s diagnostic systems group. Two Beckman engineers, Polish nationals who were on temporary assignment in Moscow, were making plans Monday to leave the country as soon as possible.

“They thought within a couple of days they’d be out,” Torrellas said. “The real problem is getting (an airplane) seat, and if not, they are going to drive out.”

Torrellas said the engineers had seen no signs of panic, and the company had no reason to fear for their safety.

A Placentia tour operator received word Monday morning that a group of about a dozen Americans, mostly from Orange County, was planning to continue its travels in the Soviet Union despite the crisis. Ken Feldman, vice president of East West International Tours, which specializes in Soviet tours, said he received a telex Monday from his father, Robert Feldman, saying that everyone was all right.

“If things were really bad, we wouldn’t have gotten a telex,” Ken Feldman said. Robert Feldman, a professor at Cal State Fullerton, indicated that he would telephone Tuesday.

But the State Department on Monday urged Americans to defer travel to the Soviet Union and advised Americans already in the country to leave as soon as they safely can.

The group departed last Thursday with Leningrad as its first stop. It was supposed to arrive in Yalta Tuesday, with later spots scheduled for Kiev and Moscow. The tour finishes Aug. 29. Because Leningrad is near Finland, Ken Feldman said, the group could make a fast exit if necessary.

Irwin Okun, chief spokesman for the Walt Disney Co. in Burbank, said his company was waiting for events to unfold before deciding on whether to pursue business activities in the Soviet Union.

“The situation is too premature,” he said. Disney has had “on-again, off-again” talks for several years about development of a Disney theme park in the Soviet Union.

But Okun said any expansion plans for the Soviet Union have been stymied by the country’s weak copyright laws, which could make it too easy for Soviet entrepreneurs to churn out Mickey and Minnie knock-off products.

Martin Lopata, a Huntington Beach businessman and veteran of numerous small joint ventures with Soviet entities, took some heart at developments in Moscow.

“I think our joint ventures will come out ahead as a result of the coup because this means that the Soviet federal government is taking charge again and, historically, the central government always honored its contracts,” he said.

Lopata said he expects future negotiations for joint ventures and trade to be more orderly if the new Soviet government is able to retain power. His Huntington Beach company, Unicorn Investment International Corp., owns 49% of Soviet American International Corp., or Sovaminco, in Moscow.

In the past year, a number of Sovaminco’s ventures either folded or were taken over by Moscow’s city government as a result, Lopata said, of changing economic policies of the Soviet Union. The city took over his most profitable enterprise--12 Moscow shops that sold souvenirs for hard currency--last October without compensating him. He now owns only 5% of that venture.

Times staff writers Sonni Efron and Chris Woodyard contributed to this story.