
On this day in 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
February 1984, Yuri Andropov died from kidney failure and was succeeded
by Konstantin Chernenko. The following year, in August 1985, Samantha
Smith died tragically in a plane crash at age 13.
Taken from:
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history [25.04.2012]
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