From the pages of the South China Morning Post this week in 1967
The US Secretary of State, Dean Rusk, was accused of committing one of the greatest post-war blunders in the handling of the defection of Stalin's daughter from the Soviet Union.
Edward Derwinski, a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, demanded in a letter that Rusk disclose fully why the State Department had withheld political asylum from Svetlana Stalin who fled to Switzerland a week earlier with US help.
'In my opinion ... the United States has obviously passed up an unparalleled opportunity to score a worldwide propaganda and psychological coup over the Soviet Union,' Derwinski said.
'Since the department has admitted that Svetlana Stalin requested political asylum in the US, obviously the request has not been granted.'
Meanwhile, the Swiss government appealed to the world's press to call off their week-long hunt for Miss Stalin, who went into hiding since she arrived in Switzerland.
