SAN FRANCISCO, June 25 (Reuter) - A senior United Nations official denied on Sunday that the organisation had censored a quotation by Tibet's exiled Dalai Lama from a book commemorating the U.N.'s 50th anniversary. Several freelance writers have accused the United Nations of censoring the book "A Vision of Hope," due to be published in July, the Washington Post reported in its Monday editions. The book, commissioned by the United Nations, contains 15 chapters, each by a different author, about aspects of the U.N.'s work. The writers were particularly incensed by the omission of a quotation by the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan leader, from a chapter about human rights. The Washington Post report said the cut was apparently motivated by a fear of offending China. The controversy erupted as President Bill Clinton and other officials gathered in San Francisco for a ceremony on Monday to mark the 50th anniversary of the signing of the United Nations Charter here. Gillian Sorensen, a U.N. official overseeing cele

brations of the organisation's 50th anniversary, denied the omission of the Dalai Lama quotation was censorship and described the controversy over the book as a "tempest in a teapot." Sorensen, one of the editors of the book, was in San Francisco for the 50th anniversary events. She said author Richard Reoch had included a quotation by the Dalai Lama in the last revision of his article. The editors asked Reoch to substitute another quotation because they were at the deadline and "didn't want a new discussion or to raise another controversy," she told Reuters. Reoch declined, so the editors omitted the quotation, she said, without explaining why the editors objected to the quotation. Sorensen said she was proud of the book and stood by the editing. The Washington Post quoted the editor of the book, British journalist Jonathan Power, as saying that U.N. officials had made at least 70 cuts from the book, deleting the names of the countries that the United Nations itself had implicated in human rights violations

. Sorensen said: "We did not wish to criticise a small number of individual countries by name." Power called the cuts "intellectual cleansing" and said the 15 contributors had withdrawn their names from the chapter headings in protest. Power and Reoch could not immediately be reached for comment.