Home » Education & Career » History For Children » Samantha Smith: America's Youngest Ambassador

Samantha Smith: America's Youngest Ambassador

© Meg Greene Malvasi

By the time Samantha arrived home from school her front yard was crowded with news reporters and photographers from all over the country. As flashbulbs popped, they asked her about the letter she had written to President Andropov and his response.

President Andropov's letter to Samantha was more than two pages long. In it, he compared Samantha to the fictional character "Becky Thatcher" in Mark Twain's famous novel Tom Sawyer. He called Samantha "courageous and honest," telling her that the Soviet Union was "trying to do everything so that there will not be war between our countries." When asked by reporters what she thought of Andropov's response she said it read like "a letter from a friend."

But that wasn't what really excited Samantha. At the close of his letter, Andropov invited Samantha to visit the Soviet Union to see for herself what the people and the country were like. After thinking about it and talking it over with her family, she decided to go. In July, Samantha and her parents left for a two-week visit.

While she was in the Soviet Union, Samantha visited Moscow and Leningrad. She also traveled to the Artek Pioneer Camp where she met and talked with several children her own age who were attending summer camp there. The children were members of the "Young Pioneers," a youth group similar to the Girl Scouts and U. S. Boy Scouts. Staying in a dormitory with nine other girls, Samantha spent her time swimming, talking, and learning Russian songs and dances. She found that many of her new friends were also concerned about peace. Samantha realized that in many ways the Russian children were not all that different from her and her friends in the United States.

By the time Samantha returned home, she had become an international celebrity. Over the next two years she balanced schoolwork, swimming, and playing softball with television appearances, speeches, and writing a book entitled Journey to the Soviet Union in which she described her visit. She also traveled with her mother to attend the Children's International Symposium in Kobe, Japan. There she gave a speech in which she suggested that Soviet and U. S. leaders exchange granddaughters for two weeks every year. She explained that a president "wouldn't want to send a bomb to a country his granddaughter would be visiting."

Gradually, Samantha Smith came to be recognized as a world-wide representative for peace. Tragically, in August 1985, however, Samantha and her father were killed in an airplane crash. The little girl who believed that "people can get along" was gone.