Yuri andropov and samantha smith

On April 26, 1983, the Soviet Union releases a letter that Russian leader Yuri Andropov wrote to Samantha Smith, an American fifth-grader from Manchester, Maine, inviting her to visit his country. Andropov’s letter came in response to a note Smith had sent him in December 1982, asking if the Soviets were planning to start a nuclear war. At the time, the United States and Soviet Union were Cold War enemies.

President Ronald Reagan, a passionate anti-communist, had dubbed the Soviet Union the “evil empire” and called for massive increases in U.S. defense spending to meet the perceived Soviet threat. In his public relations duel with Reagan, known as the “Great Communicator,” Andropov, who had succeeded longtime Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev in 1982, assumed a folksy, almost grandfatherly approach that was incongruous with the negative image most Americans had of the Soviets.

Andropov’s letter said that Russian people wanted to “live in peace, to trade and cooperate with all our neighbors on the globe, no matter how close or far away they are, and, certainly, with such a great country as the United States of America.” In response to Smith’s question about whether the Soviet Union wished to prevent nuclear war, Andropov declared, “Yes, Samantha, we in the Soviet Union are endeavoring and doing everything so that there will be no war between our two countries, so that there will be no war at all on earth.” Andropov also complimented Smith, comparing her to the spunky character Becky Thatcher from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain.

Smith, born June 29, 1972, accepted Andropov’s invitation and flew to the Soviet Union with her parents for a visit. Afterward, she became an international celebrity and peace ambassador, making speeches, writing a book and even landing a role on an American television series. In

Samantha was the girl from Manchester, Maine, who, in 1982, as a ten-year-old, wrote to Soviet leader Yuri Andropov, questioning his commitment to world peace. Shortly after receiving the letter, Andropov invited Samantha and her parents to tour the Soviet Union, which they did in a highly publicized two-week visit. The Maine State Museum’s collection includes objects and photographs from that visit.

In 1982, at age 10, Samantha Smith of Manchester, Maine, sent a letter to Yuri Andropov, leader of the Soviet Union, asking him why he wanted “to conquer the world or at least our country.” Andropov answered Samantha’s letter, telling her he didn’t want to go to war and that the Soviets only wanted peace. Shortly after receiving the letter, Andropov invited Samantha and her parents to tour the Soviet Union, which they did in a highly publicized two-week visit. The Maine State Museum’s collection includes objects and photographs from that visit. Tragically, in 1985, at the age of 13, Samantha was killed along with her father in a plane crash as the plane attempted to land at Maine’s Lewiston-Auburn Regional Airport.

Mention "young activist," and chances are latter-day heroes like Malala Yousafzai and Greta Thunberg spring to mind.

Pakistani Yousafzai survived being shot in the head by the Taliban in 2012 for fighting for girls' right to education. Thunberg's weekly protests for climate change action, that began in her native Sweden in 2018, helped birth the global youth-ledFridays for Future movement. Both were 15 when they started fighting their causes.

Back in the 1980s, at the height of the Cold War between the US and the former USSR, a 10-year-old American girl also made headlines.

Her advocacy for peace and the prevention of nuclear war remains pertinent 40 years on, as veiled threats of nuclear attack are made during the current war waged by Russia in Ukraine.

Her name was Samantha Reed Smith.

'Nobody would ever want to have another war'

Born on June 29, 1972 in Houlton, Maine, Smith was only 5 when she wrote to Queen Elizabeth II expressing her admiration.

When she was 10, the news then focused most on the Cold War and nuclear arms race that was escalating between her country led by President Ronald Reagan and Russia.

"There was always something on television about missiles and nuclear bombs," she once wrote. She described seeing a scientist who said "that a nuclear war would wreck the Earth and destroy the atmosphere. Nobody would win a nuclear war."

Then her mother showed her a copy of Time magazine dated November 22, 1982 that featured new Russian leader, Yuri Andropov. In the cover story she read with her mother, it was clear that the Soviets and the US both feared the other would start a nuclear war.

"It all seemed so dumb to me. I had learned about the awful things that had happened during World War II, so I thought that nobody would ever want to have another war," she reflected. "I told Mom that she should write

In 1982, at one of the frostiest moments in the Cold War, a fifth-grade girl from Manchester, Maine named Samantha Smith wrote a letter to Soviet Union Leader Yuri Andropov. "I have been worrying about Russia and the United States getting into a nuclear war," she wrote. "Are you going to vote to have a war or not? If you aren't, please tell me how you are going to help not have a war. P.S. Please write back."

As she explained to CBS News at the time, Samantha said, "It's a little bit hard to understand the news, because they put it in grown-up words."

But when Andropov did write back, it made national news. 

She went on "Nightline," with Ted Koppel:

Koppel: "You've got quite a pen pal there, Samantha. What did he write to you?"
Smith: "Well, I asked him why he wanted to conquer the world. And he wrote back to me and said he wanted nothing of the kind."

In his letter Andropov invited Samantha and her parents to visit the Soviet Union, where she was treated like a superstar.

Laurie Labar, curator of the Maine State Museum in Augusta, showed Rocca Polaroid pictures Samantha had taken of the crowds. She said, "There's a couple pictures here where you just see there's photographers everywhere" - all busy taking pictures of her.

During their two-week trip, Samantha became one of the Cold War's most improbable peace ambassadors. Why the Kremlin invited Samantha to the USSR was a matter of speculation.

"That was one of the concerns that people had in the United States about her going, that she was gonna be a tool of the Soviets, a propaganda dupe," said Labar. "I don't think anybody was prepared for Samantha, frankly, because she was guileless. I think that just enchanted everybody."

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

An editorial cartoon by Don Wright, of The Miami Herald, depic