for various other reasons was sent to a Gulag in 1953 for five years, where the conditions of the camp drove him to the point where he tried to commit suicide in his cell. Valentin applied for political asylum in America after discovering that his half-brother Andrew lived there (the other American son, Anthony, had died in 1969). The two half-brothers were reunited in Arizona in 1992 at an emotional press conference. Valentin died in 2001 from heart failure, receiving his American citizenship on the day he died. I Chose Freedom Kravchenko wrote a memoir, I Chose Freedom, a best-seller both in the US and Europe, containing extensive revelations on collectivization in the Soviet Union, the Soviet prison camp system, and the use of penal labor which came at a time of growing tension between the Soviet Union and the West. The publication of I Chose Freedom was met with vocal attacks from the Soviet Union and by international Communist parties. Kravchenko had made a deal prior to working with journalist Eugene Lyons, that Lyons would not receive credit, only a percentage of royalties. Trial of the Century Kravchenko's lesser-known memoir, although a best seller in Europe, I Chose Justice, published in 1950, mainly covered his "trial of the century" in France. An attack on Kravchenko's character by the French Communist weekly Les Lettres Françaises resulted in him suing them for libel in a French court. The extended 1949 trial featuring hundreds of witnesses was dubbed "The Trial of the Century". The Soviet Union flew in Kravchenko's former colleagues to denounce him, accusing him of being a traitor, a draft dodger, and an embezzler. His ex-wife appeared as well, accusing him of being physically abusive and sexually impotent. When a KGB officer alleged that he had been found mentally deficient, Kravchenko jumped to his feet and screamed, "We are not in Moscow! If you were not a witness, I'd tear your head off!". In a convincing case, Kravchenko's lawyers presented witnesses who had survived the Soviet prison camp system, including Margarete Buber-Neumann, a survivor of both Soviet and Nazi concentration camps and the widow of German Communist Heinz Neumann, who had been shot during the Great Purge. The court ultimately ruled that Kravchenko had been unfairly libeled, and was awarded only symbolic damages. In the view of one close observer, Alexander Werth, Technically, Kravchenko won his case.... which brought worldwide