He was promptly labelled a "counter-revolutionary" and spent the next 19 years undergoing reform-through-labor. In 1985, Wu went to the United States to do geological research, which he gave up in 1987 so as to enter the Hoover Institution and undertake political research instead.
一九八五年他受邀到美國作地質研究；一九八七年決定放棄專業，轉到史丹福大學胡佛研究所作政治學研究，自此他花了四年時間，完成「中國的古拉格」一書。