Cold War Hope And Tragedy: Samantha Smith's Soviet Sojourn

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Victoria33

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This was a very remarkable girl. She wrote letters to Gorbachev back in the day, 1982-ish and their exchanging letters as penpals led to her being invited to the Soviet Union. In 1985, so tragically, she died in a plane crash in the US. I think it is history worth noting. It’s truly heartbreaking to think she died August 25, 1985. There are many photos of her, see link. There really is a lot to be found on her life, I’m not saying I agree with her. She was so young.

Cold War Hope And Tragedy: Samantha Smith’s Soviet Sojourn​

In 1982, amid the tensions of the Cold War, a 10-year-old American named Samantha Smith wrote a letter to Soviet leader Yury Andropov, asking: “Why do you want to conquer the world or at least our country?” To everyone’s great surprise, she received a detailed reply from Andropov that read: “I invite you, if your parents will let you, to come to our country.” Her trip in July 1983 as a “goodwill ambassador” to the U.S.S.R. was a media sensation, although some dismissed her visit as a Soviet PR stunt. She spent three days at the most popular Young Pioneers’ camp called Artek, which was located on the Black Sea coast of the Crimean Peninsula.

After her trip, Samantha Smith became a fixture in the media, working as an actress and correspondent. In 1985, she published a book called A Journey To The Soviet Union, which was dedicated to children around the world. On August 25 of that year, 35 years ago, Samantha died at the age of 13 along with her father and six others in a plane crash in Auburn, Maine. The crash was ruled an accident, mainly due to bad weather and an inexperienced crew.
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1 Samantha Smith flew to the Crimean Peninsula from Moscow. At the airport in Simferopol, she was met by children from the camp who taught her to sing a number of popular songs.

I did not know this, the exposure she got from going over to the USSR got her a job as an actress in the US. She apparently recorded 3 shows of “Lime Street”,

She’s on the left in the below picture.


Samantha Smith - Wikipedia.

So, this is history I was not well familiar with but I do think it is interesting for those concerned. Quite tragic.
 
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