The Jewish Defense League today denied responsibility for last night’s bomb explosion at an office building in mid-Manhattan housing the Soviet Aeroflot and Czechoslovakian airlines, but said it “applauded the action. We believe that Jewish militants wanted to tell the Soviet Union that they will not have their detente with the United States until 16-year-old Marina Tiemkin and all Soviet Jews are allowed to emigrate.”
The bomb, which went off shortly before midnight, shattered hundreds of windows in the area and left the streets covered with glass. Police said there were no injuries. They described the device as powerful and said that if it had exploded during the day, hundreds could have been killed or injured.
On Feb. 27, four shots were fired into the Soviet Union’s residential compound in the Riverdale section of New York. At that time, a caller to the news media said the shooting was done on behalf of Tiemkin and claimed to be from the Jewish Armed Resistance.
The JDL, at that time, also disclaimed responsibility but applauded the action. The Soviet Mission to the UN demanded that the U.S. government identify and apprehend the culprits and take action to halt harassment of Soviet officials and their families. Marina’s father. Dr. Alexander Tiemkin, was allowed to leave the Soviet Union and is currently a professor of physics at Tel Aviv University. He has issued numerous appeals for his daughter to be allowed to be reunited with him.
(In Washington, the State Department today expressed regrets to the Soviet and Czechoslovak Embassies here and to their UN Missions in NY.)
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