Samantha Smith, prominent young Citizen Diplomat in the Cold War

January 31, 2020 2:47 PM

In December 1982, Samantha Smith, a ten-year-old girl from Maine wrote a letter to the Soviet leader, Yuri Andropov, expressing her fears about a potential nuclear war. Andropov wrote back in April 1983 (copies of both letters), the main Soviet newspaper Pravda quoted her letter, and the Smith family was invited to visit the Soviet Union during the summer. The Surprising Story of the American Girl Who Broke Through the Iron Curtain (Smithsonian Magazine). That article downplays her impact, but this article suggests that Samantha Smith’s trip was a pivotal moment in the Cold War de-escalation (University of East Anglia).

Bonus: more on Artek (Wikipedia), an elite Soviet summer camp, visited by as many as 400 kids from the U.S. (Atlas Obscura), including Samantha Smith, as seen in the Smithsonian Magazine article.

posted by filthy light thief (11 comments total)

The post is currently linked in the Related Posts, but here it is again: Samantha Smith, previously (Dec. 2006).
posted by filthy light thief at 2:49 PM on January 31, 2020

I remember her, as we were the same age. It was terrifying at that age thinking about nuclear war with Russia and she expressed so well and so simply that fear and worry. Because of that letter she wrote, I remember it feeling like we were close to ending the cold war, like the peace was in the air. When she died in that plane crash, it felt like such a conspiracy against peace.
posted by vivzan at 3:29 PM on January 31, 2020 [9 favorites]

During the early 1980s my granduncle sent us a couple of audio cassettes of him talking.
We were living in New York, then Michigan. I was a kid. Misha was a Soviet diplomat who worked with Andropov.
I remember him rambling in Russian and English about peace, being scared of war and Reagan.
I don't know to what extent the tapes had been edited.
I wish I still had them.
posted by doctornemo at 4:37 PM on January 31, 2020 [3 favorites]

Around the same time there was the 10-year-old girl who became pen pals with General Manuel Noriega. Subject of a This American Life episode.

It seems that in the distant past, letter writing was a thing.
posted by JackFlash at 4:47 PM on January 31, 2020 [1 favorite]

It did feel like a "conspiracy against peace", vivzan; I decided at the time it was just extremely unfortunate, but in retrospect, that conclusion seems less secure.
posted by jamjam at 4:59 PM on January 31, 2020 [2 favorites]

I think of Samantha Smith sometimes when I think of Greta Thunberg, although Smith's name often escapes me. Thunberg is older and far more in control of her message, but I have worried in the past that she might come to some harm. It won't be from riding in a plane, I expect, although small planes are risky enough that no conspiracy is really needed to explain a crash.
posted by Countess Elena at 5:13 PM on January 31, 2020 [6 favorites]

Samantha was a couple years younger than me and lived in my hometown down the road from us. She was just a regular kid. I remember going to her funeral at our church. It was really sad. Looking back, it seems like the end of an era.
posted by AJScease at 6:50 PM on January 31, 2020 [11 favorites]

It was just an unfortunate plane crash. From my memory growing up there, small airlines in Maine suffered quite a few accidents in the 70s and 80s.
posted by AJScease at 6:55 PM on January 31, 2020 [4 favorites]

Andropov.
I remember him rambling in Russian and English about peace, being scared of war and Reagan.

The grey eminence. Well,товарищ кинозвезда didn't cut it in his policies. Andropov took a different approach. His speech to The Central Committee December, 21. 1982. No answer to nixons overture to a summit. By the end of December Tass published Andropovs answers from Hearst papers outlining a disarmament programme for 1983, nuclear freeze, 25% reduction in all nuclear arsenal's and sure to a summit. CIA didn't see Andropov coming as a serious contender and off set the US with the peace push which put Washington off balance. Smith's letter is interesting in that he must have sat on it and by 1983, decided to cast that balloon and it worked considering the threat of Pershing and cruise missiles being placed in Germany. He keep shooting back with peace talk. Even VP Bush's trip to calm NATO© looked aggressive. Andropov blunted America's image projection. It's difficult to predict what his policies would have been but the Smith visit was a brilliant move. I think alot of his legacy in matters of state survive today.
posted by clavdivs at 9:37 PM on January 31, 2020 [4 favorites]

UK artist Conelrad makes Cold War themed atmospheric music. His track, Samantha Smith, has her talking a little at the beginning.
posted by gc at 1:47 PM on February 1, 2020 [2 favorites]

I grew up in Lewiston, ME, about 6 years younger than Samantha, I remember hearing about her at the time of the plane crash and thinking she was such a hero.
posted by banjo_and_the_pork at 1:42 PM on February 3, 2020