When Šejna failed to bring about Novotný's reinstatement, he began plotting a military coup, a plan which failed to gain support as well. Novotný was finally replaced by Alexander Dubček, a reform-minded member of the Czechoslovak party presidium, as leader of the party. Losing power, changing sides Losing his political influence, Šejna was under investigation for corruption: "… the official case against General Šejna was limited to charges that he had allegedly misappropriated 300,000 crowns ($20,000) worth of state-owned alfalfa and clover seed". However, before he could be arrested he defected in February 1968 with his son and his son's fiancée to Italy and settled in the US. News of Šejna's indictment and defection quickly spread through Czechoslovakia's increasingly open press. He soon came to be known as "Clover Seed General" for his alleged massive embezzlement of clover. Šejna was granted asylum in the United States, much to the dismay of Soviet authorities and became an intelligence source for American agencies and policy makers. According to Czechoslovak ambassador Duda, it was ironic that, "Šejna, who represented the worst elements of the conservative clique in Prague, should find haven in the United States". In 1970, Šejna was sentenced by Czechoslovak courts in absentia to ten years in prison, to the forfeiture of his property and loss of all of his official titles and decorations. Czechoslovakia unsuccessfully requested the US to extradite him. Life in the United States In the following three decades in the United States, Šejna worked as a counterintelligence analyst for the Central Intelligence Agency later as a consultant to the Defense Intelligence Agency until his death in 1997. He spoke out in interviews and appeared before U.S. Congressional committees. Facts and fiction He claimed "that the Soviet intelligence agency directed terrorist training camps in Czechoslovakia in the mid-60s … the Soviet Union collaborated with North Korea in the capture of the U.S. intelligence ship Pueblo from Pacific waters in 1968 and that Cuba and Czechoslovakia worked together to establish drug-trafficking networks throughout Latin America and to infiltrate those in existence … the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia tested drugs on U.S. prisoners of war during the Korean and Vietnam wars". In his book We Will Bury You, Šejna gave an insight into Soviet Cold War strategies, quoting Konstantin Katushev, secretary of the Soviet Central Committee: "If we can impose on the U.S.A. the external restraints proposed in our Plan,