Following the discovery of Lenin's portrait, Nelson Rockefeller delayed the mural's planned May 1 unveiling. He wrote to Rivera to request that the painter remove the picture of Lenin. The portrait was the only thing about "Man at the Crossroads" that offended the Rockefeller family, despite the presence of other overtly Communist icons such as the hammer and sickle. A letter of reply from Rivera, written on May 6, politely declined the offer to remove Lenin's portrait, but by way of a compromise, offered to add Abraham Lincoln to the work. Rivera also said that he would be amenable to adding portraits of other American icons such as the abolitionists Nat Turner, John Brown, or Harriet Beecher Stowe, but he refused to remove the portrait of Lenin: "Rather than mutilate the conception the mural, I shall prefer the physical destruction of the conception in its entirety, but preserving, at least, its integrity." Daniel Okrent states that Rivera did not write the letter himself, instead leaving the task to Ben Shahn, the assistant most strongly opposed to Nelson's request to remove the Lenin portrait.