Received permission to leave Russia in 1967 to return the ashes of her lover, Brijesh Singh, home to India.  Once there she went to the US Embassy to seek political asylum.  She became a high profile soviet exile as she was escorted to Switzerland.  She was finally granted asylum in the USA in 1967.

Denounced the Soviet Union at a press conference when she arrived in the USA.  A few months later she published her autobiography, “Twenty Letters to a Friend" followed by a book in 1969 about her defection entitled "Only One Year".  She also burned her Soviet passport and denounced her father as  “a moral and spiritual monster".

Moved to the UK in 1982 and began to rebuild communications with the Soviet Union in an an attempt to reach her 2 children who still lived there.  In 1984, she and her 13 year old daughter Olga returned to Russia where she denounced the West.  She was however snubbed by her 2 older children for her Christian beliefs and finally returned to the USA in 1986.

She once said “Wherever I go,” she said, “here, or Switzerland, or India, or wherever. Australia. Some island. I will always be a political prisoner of my father’s name.”