Soviet dictator Josef Stalin’s only daughter, whose defection to the West in 1967 set off an international furor and made her a best-selling author, has died. She was 85.
Richland County, Wis., Coroner Mary Turner says Lana Peters died on Nov. 22 of colon cancer.
Peters’ daughter, Chrese Evans, declined comment Monday when contacted via email.
Peters defected from the Soviet Union in 1967 – a major embarrassment to the ruling communists. The Soviet premier denounced her as “morally unstable.”
Her memoir, “Twenty Letters to a Friend,” later that year became a best-seller.
She later married noted architect William Wesley Peters. They had a daughter but divorced in 1973. She moved back to the Soviet Union briefly in the 1980s but returned to the West.
Her father died in 1953.
The Associated Press
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