( The above photograph is of Stalin and his daughter in his arms) Newly classified documents show the FBI kept closed tabs on the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin's only daughter after her high profile defection to the United States in 1967, gathering details from information about how her arrival was affecting intenational relations. The documents released last week to the Associated Press under the Freedom of Information Act, after Lana Peter's death at the age of 85,in Wisconsin nursing home. Her deferction to the West during Cold War embarrassed the ruling Communists, and made her the best selling author. Her move was a public relation coup for the US. On April 28, 1967, memo details a conversation with a confidential source who said the defection would have a "profound affect" for any one else thinking of trying to leave the Soviet Uninion. When she defected, Peter was known as Svetlana Alliluyeva, but she went by Lana Peters, folowing her 1970 marraige to William Wesley Peters, an apprentice at Frank Lloyd Wright. Peters said her defection was motivated by Soviet authorities, poor treatment of her late hussband Brijesh Singh, a prominent leader in the Indian Communist party. While in the Soviet it was thought that she defected due to the attraction of material wealth in the US. It was said by in the report of FBI on Masy Day Celebrations in Moscow. George Kannen, a prominent fiigure in the cold war and former ambassador to the Soviet Union, advised the FBi that he and Alliluyeva were concerned Soviet agents would try contact her, a December 1967 memo reveals. The memo notes that no security arrangements were made for Peters and no other document in the file indicates that KGB ever tracked her down.
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