Some days, it's just like it used to be back in the days when we all went to bed fearing that Nikita Khrushchev (or worse, a woman who looked like him) was going to come over here from Russia and start a war, or at least, a period of great unpleasantness. Some American politicians have found it worthwhile to exploit these fears, and so it was that former movie performer Ronald W. Reagan, having been elected president of the United States in 1980, decided it would make him look good at home and abroad by rattling the sabers of war. Just by causing trouble with other countries, he could make himself look capable, he thought.
A perfect example was the time in 1984 when the aging actor parked his carcass on a chair in his vacation home near Santa Barbara in order to make his weekly radio address to the nation. He was supposed to announce that he "signed legislation that will allow student religious groups to begin enjoying a right they've too long been denied—the freedom to meet in public high schools during nonschool hours, just as other student groups are allowed to do."
It took a lot of phone calls, cablegrams, and apologies to clear that one up!
That was just to give you an idea of the tenor of the times. There was always an undercurrent of impending war, and fooling around like that was not helpful.
I'll tell you who WAS helpful, and that was a young lady named Samantha Smith. She was only ten years of age in December,1982, when she spoke for and to children of all ages by writing a letter to Yuri Vladimirovich Andropov, the sixth paramount leader of the Soviet Union and the fourth General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. He was the leader of the Soviet Union at the time, having just been promoted from his old job as head of the KGB, the state security agency.
Samantha watched the news on television and became concerned about the arms race between our countries. So she wrote a letter to Andropov to see what he planned to do to avoid a nuclear war:
Dear Mr. Andropov,
My name is Samantha Smith. I am ten years old. Congratulations on your new job. I have been worrying about Russia and the United States getting into a nuclear war. Are you going to vote to have a war or not? If you aren’t please tell me how you are going to help to not have a war. This question you do not have to answer, but I would like to know why you want to conquer the world or at least our country. God made the world for us to live together in peace and not to fight.
Sincerely,
Samantha Smith
By April, 1983, having had no response from Andropov, Samantha invested in another stamp and wrote to the Soviet ambassador to the United States, Anatoly Dobrynin.
Just like when you write to Apple about a messed-up pc, she soon got a letter from the head guy! Andropov replied later that month, acknowledging Smith’s specific question, agreeing that nuclear weapons were not for the best for anyone, and promising not to use nukes in a first strike anywhere.
And he mentioned that he thought Samantha reminded him of Becky, a courageous and honest character in Mark Twain's book "Huckleberry Finn."
American leaders saw this as a direct slap at Reagan, who was not known for familiarity with any book by any author.
In that summer of 1983, Smith and her entire family visited the Soviet Union, touring Moscow, Leningrad, and the Artek children’s camp on the Black Sea. She came home and appeared on many television shows, and even wrote a book about her experiences ("Journey to the Soviet Union") in 1985.
She spoke in 1983 at the International Children’s Symposium in Japan, suggesting that that U.S. and Soviet leaders exchange granddaughters for two weeks every year, since no leader would bomb a country where his granddaughter was visiting.
In 1984, an election year that would see Reagan win in a landslide, Samantha was host for an interview show about the issues of the day, called "Samantha Smith Goes to Washington: Campaign ’84."
Reagan, speaking in Louisville, Kentucky that spring, said he had begun attending church "here in Washington," and also commented on military members' "costumes," or uniforms, as we call them.
Samantha was offered chances to succeed in Reagan's line of work, and was playing a part in a TV series "Lime Street," starring Robert Wagner.
She and her father died in August, 1985, in a plane crash, returning from shooting a segment of the show in London. She was fondly remembered in Russia, where a postage stamp was issued in her honor, and in her home state of Maine, a statue showing her releasing a dove of peace is on display. Her mother has since established the Samantha Smith Foundation, a group with the goals of peace education and fostering international friendships among children.
Ronald Reagan served two full terms, accomplishing very little.
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