Samantha Smith, the fifth-grader from Maine who became “America’s Littlest Diplomat”

In 1982, at one of many frostiest moments within the Chilly Conflict, a fifth-grade woman from Manchester, Maine named Samantha Smith wrote a letter to Soviet Union Chief Yuri Andropov. “I’ve been worrying about Russia and america getting right into a nuclear battle,” she wrote. “Are you going to vote to have a battle or not? Should you aren’t, please inform me how you’re going to assist not have a battle. P.S. Please write again.”

As she defined to CBS Information on the time, Samantha mentioned, “It is a little bit bit laborious to know the information, as a result of they put it in grown-up phrases.”

However when Andropov did write again, it made nationwide information. 

She went on “Nightline,” with Ted Koppel:

Koppel: “You have received fairly a pen pal there, Samantha. What did he write to you?”
Smith: “Effectively, I requested him why he wished to overcome the world. And he wrote again to me and mentioned he wished nothing of the type.”

In his letter Andropov invited Samantha and her dad and mom to go to the Soviet Union, the place she was handled like a famous person.

Laurie Labar, curator of the Maine State Museum in Augusta, confirmed Rocca Polaroid photos Samantha had taken of the crowds. She mentioned, “There is a couple photos right here the place you simply see there’s photographers in every single place” – all busy taking photos of her.

Throughout their two-week journey, Samantha turned one of many Chilly Conflict’s most inconceivable peace ambassadors. Why the Kremlin invited Samantha to the USSR was a matter of hypothesis.

“That was one of many issues that folks had in america about her going, that she was gonna be a instrument of the Soviets, a propaganda dupe,” mentioned Labar. “I do not suppose anyone was ready for Samantha, frankly, as a result of she was guileless. I feel that simply enchanted everyone.”

At Camp Artek in Crimea, Samantha was welcomed by hundreds of Soviet youngsters, few of whom had ever even met an American. In a camp custom, she threw a bottle with a message of peace into the Black Sea.

An editorial cartoon by Don Wright, of The Miami Herald, depicts Samantha Smith leaping from one nation’s nuclear warhead to a different, “which I assumed was a wonderful encapsulation of her entire journey,” mentioned Labar.

Again residence in Maine, Samantha was greeted with a parade, and she or he charmed Johnny Carson on “The Tonight Present.”

Johnny Carson: “Have you learnt what Bolshoi means?”
Smith: “Nice.”
Carson: “Sure, nice, or large. That is all it means.”
Smith: “I assumed you did not know Russian.”

In the present day at Manchester Elementary, the very college Samantha went to 40 years in the past, college students study her peace mission.

One pupil, Meika, mentioned, “She communicated with love and kindness, and she or he made the world a greater place.”

One other, Hunter, mentioned, “Makes me really feel like even youngsters at my age could make a giant world change.”

“I feel she nonetheless wished to be a traditional 11-year-old woman,” mentioned Jessica Dwyer, who was Samantha’s classmate and an in depth pal. She mentioned Samantha by no means bragged about what a giant deal she’d develop into … apart from that point she made a visitor look on the sitcom “Charles in Cost.”  “‘Explanation for Scott Baio, after all!” she laughed. “I imply, my solely request was that she deliver again his autograph. And she or he did!”

Sadly, Samantha Smith’s life ended solely two years after her journey to the Soviet Union. In 1985, heading residence from filming a TV sequence, the small aircraft she and her father had been in crashed, killing all eight on board. She was 13 years outdated.

Rocca requested Dwyer, “How did your 13-year-old mind even course of that she had died?”

“It took me a very long time to simply accept it,” she replied. “And I will share this, I have never shared it with very many individuals: I all the time thought that she and her dad escaped the aircraft and had been in a tree, residing this nice life. And I feel that was simply my manner of preserving her reminiscence alive.”

In the present day, there is a statue of Samantha in Augusta – a monument to the woman nicknamed “America’s Littlest Diplomat.”

Hearken to the “Mobituaries” episode “Samantha Smith: Demise of a Peacemaker”

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Story produced by Mary Lou Teel. Editor: Mike Levine.