'The Littlest Defector'

(CBS)  The plight of 6-year-old Elian Gonzalez feels all too familiar to 32-year-old Walter Polovchak. CBS News Anchor Dan Rather reports.

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"It's amazing to me that history repeats itself," says Polovchak.

He says seeing all the media staged in Miami and the tremendous pressure that the family is under, "brought back a lot of memories."

In 1980 Polovchak was nicknamed "the littlest defector." At the time he was 12 and his parents had come to the United States from the Soviet Ukraine seeking their American dream. When they decided it was time to return, young Polovchak refused.

He explains, "I said no. I love this country. I want to stay here," he says. "It wasn't that I was a rebellious child, that I didn't care for my parents or anything because I did love my parents."

"I wouldn't have any future, I would have been forced to go to the army, never had an education or any opportunity," he added.

The U.S. Department of Justice agreed and granted Polovchak temporary political asylum while his fate was being decided in the courts.

"America was like Disneyland to me," he says. "I was literally like a little kid going to the store and saying 'WOW, look at all of this.'"

And like the Gonzalez case, the political tug-of-war between the Soviet Union and the United States was played out in the national spotlight.

Polovchak remembers, "It was very difficult because I was surrounded by media from helicopters to camera men swinging from trees, I couldn't even ride my bike up and down the street. It was tremendous pressure. I always felt like I was walking under a microscope."

"The worst part of the whole thing, besides the media, was the fear that I was living in for 5-and-a-half years not knowing what was going to happen to me from day to day," says Polovchak.

Almost six years after the court battle began, an 18-year-old Polovchak was finally granted U.S. citizenship.

Polovchak says, "I have never had a second thought about it. I have never regretted my decision and if I had to do it all over again I would do it all over again."

Today, Polovchak is married with a 6-year-old son and a new house. He is living his American dream.

He says that to him the American dream means freedom, the ability to go to church, practice any religion that you want to, be able to move from state to state, to travel anywhere without the permission from the government and freedom of speech.

Polovchak concluded, "American dream is what I got when our government allowed me to stay in this country."

Since becoming a U.S. citizen, Polovchak has twice visited the now-independent Ukraine, and has re-established warm relations with his parents.

Editor's Note: In reporting Polovchak's story, it is not the intention of CBS News to take sides or advocate any particular solution to the Elian Gonzalez case.