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The bombing offered the Russians yet another opportunity to exaggerate U.S. responsibility for J.D.L. outrages; this was reflected in Yevtushenko's histrionics at the Felt Forum. In his poem, he described his visit to the wrecked office:
How many friends of yours
Solomon, Son of Israel
in frames on your office walls!
and on the floor
Stanislavsky with his wounds
near by Plisetskaya
half on fire . . .
Then he addressed the dead girl:
Poor Iris
victim of the age
you've fallen
fragile
dark-eyed
Jewish girl suffocated by smoke
as though in a Nazi gas chamber.
The Hurok offices, he said, have "the stench of Auschwitz."