Vinokurov by surprise. He had been made aware of some diplomatic problems surrounding the visit, but thought they had been resolved.

"It's complicated," he said.

Vinokurov said the change in orders came as a result of what he called "a long problem" that involves lawsuits and a diplomatic dispute over the so-called Schneerson Library, a collection of more than 62,000 Jewish religious books and documents held by the Moscow State Library. The library was assembled by the Chabad-Lubavitch Hassidic movement over about 200 years.

Some of the material was seized by the Soviet government soon after the October revolution and another portion was captured by the Nazis during World War II and seized by the Soviet Union after the war. Lawyers for the Chabad organization, based in New York City, saythat the Russians had shown no interest in the library and had kept it boxed up in the basements of museums.

In 1991, in the last years of the Soviet Union, a court in Moscow ordered the library turned over to the Chabad organization. But the Soviet Union collapsed and the new Russian authorities set aside the judgment. The Russian government now says it wants to preserve the library itself for the use of scholars and Russian Jews.

The Chabad organization felt it could not get a fair hearing in Russian courts and sued the Russian government in U.S. courts to acquire the library. Last year, a U.S. court ruled in the organization's favor and ordered Russian authorities to turn the library over.

The Russians refused. "We argue that this case