Mikhail Gorbachev reflects on America’s youngest ambassador, Samantha Smith

[bluedigger]

By Lena Nelson, Special to the BDN
Posted July 10, 2013, at 12:13 p.m.

Samantha Smith
Thirty years ago, in the summer of 1983, 11-year-old Samantha Smith from Manchester, Maine, was the most famous little girl in the world. Images of a freckle-faced smiling Samantha holding a letter from the Soviet Premier Yuri Andropov and later touring the Soviet Union went out on all news wires.

“Actually, the whole thing started when I asked my mother if there is going to be a war,” Samantha wrote in her book, “Journey to the Soviet Union.”

“There was always something on television about missiles and nuclear bombs. … I remembered that I woke up one morning and wondered if this was going to be the last day of the Earth,” she wrote.

In 1983 when I went to school on the other side of the Iron Curtain — in Arkhangelsk — my teacher used to describe what would happen when the nuclear blast hits, “We all will be like grains of sand, aimlessly strewn about.”

http://bangordailynews.com/2013/07/10/opinion/mikhail-gorbachev-reflects-on-americas-youngest-ambassador-samantha-smith/

A short piece reflecting on the significance of Samantha's letter. I remember how upset the Germans were about the deployment of Pershing II missiles when I arrived there in 1984 with the US Army. This little girl changed the world.

[frazzled]

1. Funny, I don't remember this at all ...

(and I was in my 30s at the time). But thank you so much for posting the story, so that I could read about it so many years later.

[bluedigger]

2. You are welcome.

It was a huge story in Maine, of course, and briefly of national interest. She and her dad died in a plane crash two years later, but she left a great legacy.

[A Little Weird]

3. Thanks for sharing this excellent story!

I was a little kid at the time and never heard about it. This would be a good story to share with kids - to show them they can make a difference in the world.

[Behind the Aegis]

4. I remember this, and I remember when she died.

We discussed it in our history class.