Mayor Wagner made a surprise announcement last night that he had persuaded officials of the World’s Fair to remove a disputed mural from the Jordan Pavilion, but a spokesman at the World’s Fair indicated today he could neither confirm nor deny the report.
The mural, which has been sharply protested by Jewish groups as anti-Israel, remained in place today. The World’s Fair spokesman said he assumed it would remain there. A spokesman for the Mayor said last night that the Mayor had acted after receiving “many complaints from various organizations.”
The Mayor’s office confirmed the announcement today but declined to give any information as to the names of the World’s Fair officials who had agreed to have the panel removed, and said “further information will have to come from the World’s Fair. ” Robert Moses, president of the World’s Fair, had rejected last Saturday a request by the American-Israel Pavilion for removal of the mural. Mr. Moses is in a hospital recuperating from surgery.
A spokesman for the Jordan Pavilion said he had not been informed of the Mayor’s action and that, in any event, such a request would have to be transmitted to the Jordanian Government in Amman for any decision.
The American Zionist Council, coordinating body of all Zionist organizations in the United States, protested yesterday to the World’s Fair Corporation against the Jordanian Government’s “manufacture of propaganda against the State of Israel and deliberate attempt to foment anti-Israel feeling in the United States.”
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