WEBVTT - Samantha Smith: Death of a Peacemaker 0:00:03.800 --> 0:00:07.280 Like most of my generation, I grew up scared as 0:00:07.320 --> 0:00:11.879 hell of nuclear armageddon. Sometimes my father would sit at 0:00:11.880 --> 0:00:14.240 the edge of my bed and tell me not to worry, 0:00:14.680 --> 0:00:18.760 that nuclear war wouldn't happen, precisely because the superpowers had 0:00:18.760 --> 0:00:22.440 the capacity to blow each other up the military doctrine 0:00:22.480 --> 0:00:26.759 of mutual assured destruction. I'm not sure if he believed 0:00:26.760 --> 0:00:28.920 it or if he was just trying to make me 0:00:28.960 --> 0:00:32.839 feel better. Roger, this is not an exercise. But I 0:00:32.880 --> 0:00:35.440 was worried enough that I made sure to watch a 0:00:35.560 --> 0:00:39.200 made for TV movie on ABC called The Day After. 0:00:40.080 --> 0:00:44.960 It aired right before Thanksgiving with limited commercials, so you 0:00:45.040 --> 0:00:48.320 knew this was a really big deal. It depicted the 0:00:48.400 --> 0:00:53.080 destruction of Kansas City after a nuclear attack. Roger understanding 0:00:54.040 --> 0:01:00.760 missiles and bound Nountain. The Day After was shockingly graphic 0:01:00.840 --> 0:01:04.080 for the time. What I remember most, though, isn't the 0:01:04.120 --> 0:01:08.160 scene of the incineration a lot of people turning into skeletons, 0:01:08.160 --> 0:01:11.920 but the scene right before. A character played by Jason 0:01:12.040 --> 0:01:16.240 Robards is driving on the highway when enemy nuclear weapons 0:01:16.360 --> 0:01:24.600 detonate overhead. Suddenly, all the cars simply stopped running. They 0:01:24.600 --> 0:01:29.200 go silent. Robards and the other drivers tried turning their ignitions, 0:01:29.800 --> 0:01:36.400 but nothing. In other words, a nuclear bomb would subvert 0:01:36.640 --> 0:01:41.280 nature on such an elemental molecular level that cars everywhere 0:01:41.319 --> 0:01:45.800 would just go dead. I have no idea that the 0:01:45.880 --> 0:01:48.960 science on this checks out, but watching it then it 0:01:49.040 --> 0:01:53.919 was so completely unnerving. I was fourteen when the movie 0:01:53.960 --> 0:01:56.840 came out, a few years too old to admit how 0:01:56.880 --> 0:01:59.880 scared I was, but it's a good bet that most 0:02:00.000 --> 0:02:03.680 of the record breaking one hundred million Americans who watched 0:02:03.800 --> 0:02:07.000 that movie were just as afraid. We did watch it 0:02:07.040 --> 0:02:10.720 as a family, and it was deeply disturbing. I still 0:02:10.720 --> 0:02:14.160 have images in my head of it just being gray 0:02:14.160 --> 0:02:20.600 and dark, and people staggering through the destroyed wilderness. What 0:02:20.800 --> 0:02:24.720 we have seen, the missiles launched, the nuclear explosions, the 0:02:24.840 --> 0:02:29.040 devastating results, was all fiction. But what brought us to 0:02:29.120 --> 0:02:31.919 that point is fact. It's something we've been living with 0:02:32.000 --> 0:02:36.040 for years. It's the arms race. But not everyone was 0:02:36.160 --> 0:02:40.639 paralyzed by the fear of nuclear war. The previous November, 0:02:40.960 --> 0:02:44.000 a schoolgirl from Maine, a few years younger than me, 0:02:44.360 --> 0:02:50.240 decided to do something. She wrote a letter, a letter 0:02:50.400 --> 0:02:55.880 that asked a simple, eminently sane, and sensible question. Somehow 0:02:55.919 --> 0:03:00.840 Samantha managed to boil things down to the essence. We 0:03:00.960 --> 0:03:04.280 are all human beings and we shouldn't be looking to 0:03:04.320 --> 0:03:09.960 annihilate each other. And that letter made big news, and finally, tonight, 0:03:10.080 --> 0:03:12.720 the story of Samantha Smith, a ten year old girl 0:03:12.760 --> 0:03:16.600 from Manchester, Maine. At one of the tensest periods in 0:03:16.720 --> 0:03:20.600 Cold War history, Samantha Smith ended up going to the 0:03:20.639 --> 0:03:23.560 Soviet Union. The people that have been to the Soviet 0:03:23.639 --> 0:03:27.799 Union have a definite answer, them not wanting more and 0:03:28.360 --> 0:03:32.320 wanting peace, just like I do. She was an ordinary 0:03:32.440 --> 0:03:36.040 girl with an uncommon touch. She was that beam of 0:03:36.080 --> 0:03:39.400 sunshine that broke through the cold ice of cold work. 0:03:40.080 --> 0:03:43.720 Her life may have been short, she had such potential 0:03:43.800 --> 0:03:47.520 mo she could have done anything, but she left a 0:03:47.680 --> 0:03:52.240 powerful legacy and her short thirteen years she did more 0:03:52.280 --> 0:03:55.800 than a lot of people do. In fifty from CBS 0:03:55.840 --> 0:04:01.280 Sunday Morning, and I Heart, I'm Morocca And this is mobituaries, 0:04:04.640 --> 0:04:12.840 This mobid Samantha Smith. August the death of a peacemaker. 0:04:28.160 --> 0:04:36.320 Hi nice squeezed and I think At Manchester Elementary School 0:04:36.360 --> 0:04:40.520 in Manchester, Maine, the story of its most notable alum 0:04:40.560 --> 0:04:44.880 lives on. So today we're talking about Samantha Smith, who 0:04:45.000 --> 0:04:48.720 was a student at this school. Teachers like Mrs O'Brien 0:04:49.000 --> 0:04:53.039 have been telling Samantha Smith's story for forty years. So 0:04:53.160 --> 0:04:57.320 she and her parents traveled to the Soviet Union. And 0:04:57.400 --> 0:05:00.440 this is a picture of Samantha holding up the letter 0:05:00.880 --> 0:05:07.799 she became famous and this shy, really sweet little girl 0:05:07.920 --> 0:05:11.600 from Manchester, Maine, all of a sudden was being interviewed. 0:05:11.880 --> 0:05:15.960 Look at all the microphones in front of her. Samantha's 0:05:16.080 --> 0:05:19.720 story makes an immediate impression on the kids. What is 0:05:19.760 --> 0:05:22.680 the thing that sort of stands out? Um, probably how 0:05:22.680 --> 0:05:27.120 she's always smiling, Um, that she's always happy. She could 0:05:27.200 --> 0:05:30.040 It's basically like she could walk into any room with 0:05:30.080 --> 0:05:32.160 people at are grouchy and she can cheer him up 0:05:32.160 --> 0:05:36.599 in a matter of seconds. That's wild to be in 0:05:36.640 --> 0:05:39.400 this school that she went to, Yah, And I think 0:05:39.480 --> 0:05:43.080 that's the great part for the kids when they're sitting 0:05:43.080 --> 0:05:46.320 in the classroom and you can say, like, this is 0:05:46.360 --> 0:05:49.360 where she sat. I mean, so she was just like you. 0:05:49.960 --> 0:05:53.360 Jessica Dwyer is another one of the teachers telling Samantha's 0:05:53.440 --> 0:05:57.560 story today. She really knows the subject matter. Jessica and 0:05:57.600 --> 0:06:00.800 Samantha were students at this school together forty years ago 0:06:01.240 --> 0:06:05.839 and close friends. The pictures that I have, the memories 0:06:05.880 --> 0:06:09.200 that I have, which are fading, I think because it's 0:06:09.240 --> 0:06:14.560 been a while. She was always giggling and laughing. That's 0:06:14.560 --> 0:06:18.120 what I remember. Jessica met Samantha in the third grade 0:06:18.400 --> 0:06:21.640 when the Smith family first moved to Manchester, a town 0:06:21.640 --> 0:06:25.120 of about two thousand, just a few miles outside of Augusta, 0:06:25.279 --> 0:06:28.840 Mains Capital. It must have been hard to join as 0:06:28.839 --> 0:06:30.640 a new kid, but it did not take her long 0:06:30.680 --> 0:06:34.800 at all to develop lots of friends. Sarah Warren was 0:06:34.839 --> 0:06:39.359 another classmate and friend of Samantha's. Her mom was a 0:06:39.400 --> 0:06:41.640 Girl Scout troop leader, so we used to have some 0:06:41.800 --> 0:06:46.240 of our troop meetings at their house. Samantha's mother, Jane Smith, 0:06:46.440 --> 0:06:49.520 was a social worker for the State of Maine. Samantha 0:06:49.680 --> 0:06:54.360 was an only child. Samantha was just a very extroverted, 0:06:54.400 --> 0:06:57.160 bubbly kid. I can remember we were trying to learn 0:06:57.240 --> 0:07:05.800 how to dance like Michael Jackson because that was the 0:07:05.839 --> 0:07:08.200 era of thriller. So we were in the living room, 0:07:08.320 --> 0:07:10.640 you know, trying to learn how to moonwalk, and Samantha 0:07:10.720 --> 0:07:13.600 was leading the way. So she was she was fun. 0:07:14.200 --> 0:07:18.800 Samantha's father, Arthur Smith, was a college English professor. When 0:07:18.840 --> 0:07:21.160 Samantha was little, she would sit in on some of 0:07:21.200 --> 0:07:25.120 his classes, including one he taught about letter writing. At 0:07:25.160 --> 0:07:27.920 age five, Samantha wrote a letter to the Queen of 0:07:27.920 --> 0:07:32.840 England and got a postcard response from her lady in waiting. Yeah. See, 0:07:32.840 --> 0:07:35.240 I mean I wrote to the American presidents, but I 0:07:35.280 --> 0:07:36.960 don't know that it ever occurred to me to write 0:07:36.960 --> 0:07:39.560 to leaders of other countries. Oh, Sarah, you needed to 0:07:39.600 --> 0:07:45.560 think bigger, You needed to go global. I got there eventually. 0:07:47.640 --> 0:07:51.760 Sarah now works in the Baltimore Public School system. Before that, 0:07:51.880 --> 0:07:55.720 she spent many years doing aid work overseas, including in 0:07:55.800 --> 0:08:00.960 war zones, partly inspired by what Samantha did back three 0:08:01.160 --> 0:08:05.680 when they were just kids. I'm just a few years 0:08:05.680 --> 0:08:11.040 older than you are. I remember being terrified by the 0:08:11.120 --> 0:08:17.800 idea of nuclear war. Were you were you scared? I 0:08:17.920 --> 0:08:20.600 was terrified. I can remember a period of time in 0:08:20.600 --> 0:08:22.720 the fourth grade where I woke up every day with 0:08:22.760 --> 0:08:26.480 a stomachache, and it was because I was afraid of war. 0:08:27.240 --> 0:08:31.120 It felt like a real possibility there for for a 0:08:31.160 --> 0:08:33.240 period of time. And I remember that especially in the 0:08:33.280 --> 0:08:37.599 fourth grade, which I guess must have been impressing Samantha 0:08:37.679 --> 0:08:41.360 to you know, and been pressing on her mind, because um, 0:08:41.360 --> 0:08:43.240 that was around you know, the time that she ended 0:08:43.280 --> 0:08:47.480 up writing a letter. Ah, yes, the letter. We'll get 0:08:47.480 --> 0:08:52.160 to that, but first some context. In November of two, 0:08:52.600 --> 0:08:57.600 Soviet leader Leoned Bresnev died after eighteen years in power. Now, 0:08:57.720 --> 0:09:00.760 as a kid, I remember the Soviet leaders as a 0:09:00.800 --> 0:09:04.760 succession of crypt keepers, each one more ghoulish than the 0:09:04.800 --> 0:09:07.560 one who came before. The guy who took over right 0:09:07.600 --> 0:09:11.040 after Bresnev was a former head of the KGB spy 0:09:11.120 --> 0:09:16.000 agency named Yuri and drop Of. As ambassador to Budapest 0:09:16.040 --> 0:09:20.559 in nifty six, he oversaw the suppression of the Hungarian Revolution. 0:09:21.040 --> 0:09:24.040 As head of the KGB for fifteen years, he directed 0:09:24.040 --> 0:09:28.280 the Soviet campaign against the dissident movement. To soften and 0:09:28.360 --> 0:09:33.760 Dropov's image, the Kremlin pr operation not exactly. Madison Avenue 0:09:34.080 --> 0:09:37.280 put out that the new leader spoke fluent English and 0:09:37.480 --> 0:09:43.560 loved American jazz, So relax everyone, this Soviet leader was 0:09:44.240 --> 0:09:50.880 a hepcat. It was around this time that Samantha was 0:09:50.920 --> 0:09:54.440 watching a science program about nuclear war on public TV 0:09:54.800 --> 0:09:57.240 that scared her much like the day after would later 0:09:57.320 --> 0:10:00.600 scare me. She couldn't shake that idea that I could 0:10:00.600 --> 0:10:05.800 all be over tomorrow. Looking for some reassurance, Samantha and 0:10:05.840 --> 0:10:10.320 her mother Jane, together read in November cover story of 0:10:10.400 --> 0:10:15.079 Time magazine about and drop off. It didn't make Samantha 0:10:15.200 --> 0:10:19.600 any less worried, and she told her mother that her 0:10:19.640 --> 0:10:23.840 mother should write a letter and Jane, her mom apparently 0:10:24.640 --> 0:10:27.840 turned around and said, will you write the letter? And 0:10:27.920 --> 0:10:30.200 I do think that her writing a letter as a 0:10:30.280 --> 0:10:34.720 child was much more powerful than any adult writing a letter. 0:10:36.520 --> 0:10:40.720 She wrote the following words, Dear Mr androp Off, my 0:10:40.800 --> 0:10:45.079 name is Samantha Smith. I am ten years old. Congratulations 0:10:45.080 --> 0:10:48.199 on your new job. I have been worrying about Russia 0:10:48.280 --> 0:10:51.880 and the United States getting into a nuclear war. Are 0:10:51.920 --> 0:10:53.760 you going to vote to have a war or not? 0:10:54.480 --> 0:10:56.640 If you aren't, please tell me how you are going 0:10:56.679 --> 0:10:59.600 to help to not have a war. This question you 0:10:59.640 --> 0:11:01.840 do not have to answer, but I would like it 0:11:01.880 --> 0:11:04.640 if you would. Why do you want to conquer the 0:11:04.640 --> 0:11:08.000 world or at least our country. God made the world 0:11:08.040 --> 0:11:10.560 for us to share and take care of, not to 0:11:10.640 --> 0:11:13.240 fight over or have one group of people own it all. 0:11:14.000 --> 0:11:16.520 Please let's do what he wanted and have everybody be 0:11:16.559 --> 0:11:22.679 happy to Samantha Smith, Manchester, Main, USA, PS, please right 0:11:22.720 --> 0:11:28.440 back out of the mouths of babes, right, I mean, 0:11:29.360 --> 0:11:32.520 why do you want to have a war with our country? Um? 0:11:32.600 --> 0:11:35.800 Which is really what adults should be asking each other, 0:11:36.040 --> 0:11:39.240 you know. I think sometimes adults over complicate things, and 0:11:39.320 --> 0:11:44.280 she was getting down to the basics. At the time 0:11:44.320 --> 0:11:47.920 Samantha wrote her letter, Soviet and American leaders hadn't held 0:11:47.920 --> 0:11:52.040 a real meeting in five years. The Soviet Union's stock 0:11:52.120 --> 0:11:55.960 pile of nuclear weapons had surpassed that of the US, 0:11:56.000 --> 0:11:59.439 and neither superpower was backing away from the build up. 0:11:59.720 --> 0:12:03.000 Do or prior, the doomsday clock, the symbol of how 0:12:03.080 --> 0:12:07.960 close mankind was to annihilation stood it four minutes to midnight, 0:12:08.520 --> 0:12:14.119 perilously close to midnight. While Samantha was waiting for a response, 0:12:14.520 --> 0:12:18.959 U S President Ronald Reagan announced the Strategic Defense initiative, 0:12:19.160 --> 0:12:23.360 called star Wars by the press. The program pledged hundreds 0:12:23.400 --> 0:12:26.840 of billions of dollars to build a laser based system 0:12:26.920 --> 0:12:31.040 to intercept Soviet missiles. The President also delivered his now 0:12:31.120 --> 0:12:36.160 famous Evil Empire speech to the National Association of Evangelicals 0:12:36.160 --> 0:12:39.640 in Orlando. I urge you to beware the temptation of pride, 0:12:39.720 --> 0:12:45.320 the temptation of blithely declaring yourselves above it all, and 0:12:45.440 --> 0:12:49.280 label both sides equally at fault, to ignore the facts 0:12:49.320 --> 0:12:52.120 of history and the aggressive impulses of an evil empire, 0:12:52.240 --> 0:12:56.040 to simply call the arms race a giant misunderstanding, and 0:12:56.120 --> 0:12:59.120 thereby remove yourself from the struggle between right and wrong 0:12:59.480 --> 0:13:05.560 and good and evil. Weeks later, the Soviet state newspaper 0:13:05.640 --> 0:13:10.720 Pravda published an article featuring letters written by Westerners concerned 0:13:10.720 --> 0:13:17.680 about nuclear war. They included Samantha's letter. The next day, 0:13:17.720 --> 0:13:22.120 back at Manchester Elementary, the school secretary, Mrs Peabody called 0:13:22.160 --> 0:13:25.280 Samantha into the principal's office to take a call from 0:13:25.320 --> 0:13:30.319 an American reporter. Ten year old Samantha Smith of Manchester 0:13:30.400 --> 0:13:32.920 Made was one of three Americans whose quotes appeared in 0:13:33.000 --> 0:13:35.679 yesterday's edition of Pravda. She says she wanted to get 0:13:35.679 --> 0:13:39.400 the complicated story cleared up ask him questions about nuculate 0:13:39.400 --> 0:13:41.760 war because I wasn't I'm not that sure. It's a 0:13:41.760 --> 0:13:44.240 little bit hard to understand the news that because they 0:13:44.240 --> 0:13:45.920 put it in grown up words, you know, I can't 0:13:45.960 --> 0:13:50.640 understand what they mean, but what Samantha really couldn't understand 0:13:51.160 --> 0:13:54.360 Why didn't she receive a response? They published her letter 0:13:54.400 --> 0:13:58.480 in Pravda, but Entropov couldn't write her back, so she 0:13:58.559 --> 0:14:02.520 wrote another letter, this time to the Soviet embassy in Washington, 0:14:02.600 --> 0:14:06.360 d c. Expressing her disappointment. A week later, she got 0:14:06.400 --> 0:14:10.000 a call from a Soviet official a heavily accented voice, 0:14:10.120 --> 0:14:13.720 telling her to watch the mail. At first, Samantha thought 0:14:13.800 --> 0:14:16.439 it might be one of her dad's friends playing a joke. 0:14:17.400 --> 0:14:21.760 It wasn't. Just a few days later, a special envelope 0:14:21.840 --> 0:14:26.120 arrived at the small town post office, addressed to Samantha 0:14:26.200 --> 0:14:30.280 and signed by Urie and drop off. Samantha and her 0:14:30.360 --> 0:14:33.320 dad read the letter on the way to school, and 0:14:33.440 --> 0:14:35.560 her dad wouldn't let her bring it to school because 0:14:35.560 --> 0:14:37.600 she was He was afraid that she would lose it. 0:14:37.960 --> 0:14:40.160 Can you picture your parents saying that you can't take 0:14:40.200 --> 0:14:43.080 this important letter to school. It just came in the 0:14:43.080 --> 0:14:46.640 mail at seven this morning. What do you think when 0:14:46.680 --> 0:14:51.760 you go? I was happy. I was happy that he 0:14:51.840 --> 0:14:55.280 had responded after I had already complained that he hadn't, 0:14:55.640 --> 0:14:59.080 And it basically said that he didn't want to rule 0:14:59.120 --> 0:15:02.160 the world. He did want to have a war that 0:15:02.240 --> 0:15:07.080 he respected children, and he talked about the children and 0:15:07.280 --> 0:15:10.760 his family. And drop Off compared her to the character 0:15:10.840 --> 0:15:14.640 of Becky Thatcher in Mark Twain's Tom Sawyer, because he 0:15:14.680 --> 0:15:18.920 wrote she was brave and smart, and he invited her 0:15:19.160 --> 0:15:22.960 to come and visit the Soviet Union. Samantha, you recall, 0:15:23.080 --> 0:15:25.480 is the eleven year old from Maine who wrote erion 0:15:25.560 --> 0:15:28.440 drop Off about her concern over nuclear war. She says 0:15:28.480 --> 0:15:32.080 she hardly expected a personal invitation to visit the Soviet Union. 0:15:34.240 --> 0:15:38.320 Now it remains unclear if Andropov himself actually wrote the letter, 0:15:38.760 --> 0:15:41.720 and it's impossible to know what the Kremlin's precise aim 0:15:41.920 --> 0:15:46.160 was here. Inviting an American girl to the otherwise cloistered 0:15:46.280 --> 0:15:50.160 nation was a dramatic public relations gambit for the newly 0:15:50.200 --> 0:15:55.480 minted Soviet leader. One possibility, since the struggling Soviet economy 0:15:55.480 --> 0:15:58.880 couldn't keep up with US defense spending, perhaps in drop 0:15:58.880 --> 0:16:02.680 Off wanted instead to appeal directly to the American people 0:16:03.080 --> 0:16:07.720 and undercut public support for Reagan's hardline stance against the Soviets. 0:16:08.560 --> 0:16:12.280 Andropov has been trying hard to shed his bad cop image. 0:16:12.400 --> 0:16:15.600 He left the KGB six months ago to improve his 0:16:15.720 --> 0:16:19.360 chances for leadership. It wouldn't have been the first time 0:16:19.400 --> 0:16:22.560 a Soviet leader tried to use a child to soften 0:16:22.640 --> 0:16:27.480 his image. In ninety six, Joseph Stalin took a photo 0:16:27.760 --> 0:16:33.560 embracing an adorable seven year old Indigenous Siberian girl named Gellia. 0:16:33.720 --> 0:16:38.360 The image became iconic propaganda of the Stalinist era, depicted 0:16:38.440 --> 0:16:43.680 in countless posters, murals, and sculptures, and no wonder, little 0:16:43.720 --> 0:16:50.480 Gallia beams Stalin looks warm, positively paternal. But only a 0:16:50.600 --> 0:16:54.480 year after the photo was taken, Gallia's parents were arrested 0:16:54.480 --> 0:16:58.600 on suspicion of disloyalty, her father executed, and her mother 0:16:58.760 --> 0:17:02.320 dying in exile. What did you really expect a happy ending? 0:17:02.400 --> 0:17:06.520 We're talking Stalwin here now. A letter from the Soviet 0:17:06.600 --> 0:17:09.359 leader to an American school kid would have made news 0:17:09.480 --> 0:17:12.560 no matter what. But it just so happened that and 0:17:12.720 --> 0:17:15.800 drop Off wrote to a kid with a charisma that 0:17:16.040 --> 0:17:20.320 very soon captivated the media. She's a fifth grader who 0:17:20.320 --> 0:17:23.880 wrote to and received the now famous letter from Soviet 0:17:23.960 --> 0:17:26.560 leader Urie and drop Off. Would you welcome ten year 0:17:26.600 --> 0:17:32.280 old Samantha Smith on The Tonight Show Johnny Carson introduced 0:17:32.400 --> 0:17:36.320 Samantha to the world. She was funny. Are you getting 0:17:36.359 --> 0:17:39.800 tired of answering all the questions that people like myself 0:17:39.840 --> 0:17:42.040 when the people on the news show are asking you? Yes. 0:17:45.119 --> 0:17:47.120 I remember her sitting in the chair and her little 0:17:47.200 --> 0:17:49.960 legs dangling over and swinging because she could reached the floor. 0:17:50.080 --> 0:17:54.399 And she was just bubbly and cute. She was unaffected. 0:17:54.920 --> 0:17:57.960 How did you get the idea to write the letter? Well, 0:17:58.680 --> 0:18:02.240 nukiwarved and on t be a lot lately and it 0:18:02.359 --> 0:18:05.400 got to be so little steady on TV. I got scared. 0:18:06.119 --> 0:18:09.560 It's remarkable how at ease she was. There's nothing kid 0:18:09.600 --> 0:18:12.840 act or about her. You've never heard of me before 0:18:12.840 --> 0:18:16.760 you came on the show. Ye did they tell you 0:18:16.760 --> 0:18:24.320 anything about me? They told me or a median. What 0:18:24.440 --> 0:18:28.080 immediately comes across is her smile. Whether it was her 0:18:28.200 --> 0:18:31.760 natural disposition or the product of a happy upbringing, she 0:18:31.960 --> 0:18:35.680 just had a great natural smile. This is no small thing. 0:18:36.560 --> 0:18:38.760 I had a terrible smile when I was a kid. 0:18:39.320 --> 0:18:40.880 Part of it was that I was trying to match 0:18:40.960 --> 0:18:44.160 the smile of people on toothpaste commercials. A high bar, 0:18:44.240 --> 0:18:47.000 I know. But I was in a song in dance 0:18:47.040 --> 0:18:49.280 troop when I was in junior high and I needed 0:18:49.280 --> 0:18:51.879 a smile to match the sequence we wore when we 0:18:51.960 --> 0:18:55.680 performed at White Flint Mall in Rockville, Maryland. Anyway, I'll 0:18:55.720 --> 0:18:58.920 never forget when one day in rehearsal, I was really 0:18:58.960 --> 0:19:02.240 pushing my smile and the British director walked up to 0:19:02.280 --> 0:19:04.960 me and said, I know what you think it looks like, 0:19:05.920 --> 0:19:11.920 but it doesn't. It was devastating because she was right 0:19:12.160 --> 0:19:15.040 after that, I stuck with a closed lip smile for 0:19:15.080 --> 0:19:17.720 the rest of junior high and all of high school. 0:19:18.320 --> 0:19:21.720 Samantha smile, on the other hand, was dynamite, as the 0:19:21.760 --> 0:19:26.280 world could now see. I mean, that was big news 0:19:26.320 --> 0:19:29.080 in Manchester Main. I don't think anything is big in 0:19:29.160 --> 0:19:33.760 my recollection has happened before or since. The classmate, Jessica 0:19:33.840 --> 0:19:36.919 Dwyer says that while she knew Samantha had poked her 0:19:36.920 --> 0:19:40.080 head into the adult world in a big way, Samantha 0:19:40.119 --> 0:19:45.919 herself kept things real. The period when Samantha got the 0:19:46.000 --> 0:19:53.000 reply from her letter, it was kept very separate from us. Yes, 0:19:53.160 --> 0:19:56.760 they the media was here, we'd be outside at recess, 0:19:56.840 --> 0:20:00.800 but Samantha it wasn't something we talked about because I 0:20:00.840 --> 0:20:03.480 think she didn't want to stand out in any way. 0:20:04.000 --> 0:20:06.359 As for and drop offs invitation to visit the Soviet 0:20:06.440 --> 0:20:09.400 Union this summer, Samantha is waiting for a decision by 0:20:09.440 --> 0:20:14.119 her kitchen cabinet, her mom and dad. Samantha knew she 0:20:14.240 --> 0:20:16.880 wanted to go. When she asked her father, he said, 0:20:17.040 --> 0:20:20.840 we'll see. She knew he always said that before saying yes. 0:20:22.800 --> 0:20:25.800 As she finished up fifth grade, Samantha made plans for 0:20:25.840 --> 0:20:30.920 her diplomatic visit to the Soviet Union in July. Samantha 0:20:30.960 --> 0:20:33.960 would later write, lots of questions came into my head 0:20:33.960 --> 0:20:37.119 when I looked at pictures of Soviet people. I wondered 0:20:37.160 --> 0:20:39.480 if I could be friends with Soviet kids. What they 0:20:39.480 --> 0:20:41.280 think that I was a spy or that I was 0:20:41.320 --> 0:20:43.439 afraid of them? What they think that I wanted to 0:20:43.480 --> 0:20:47.360 conquer them. She flew with her parents, first to Boston, 0:20:47.720 --> 0:20:51.160 then on to Montreal, where the press attention was already 0:20:51.200 --> 0:20:54.160 starting to annoy. Her mom told me not to say 0:20:54.200 --> 0:20:57.160 it is because it's not you. It's your job. I mean, 0:20:57.680 --> 0:21:03.720 you're really pstoring. I ended a biting the nigrophore. But 0:21:03.840 --> 0:21:08.320 the trip was not without risks coming up. Samantha's two 0:21:08.320 --> 0:21:27.520 week adventure in the Soviet Union. So this is the 0:21:27.600 --> 0:21:30.200 kind of folk art that she was given people who 0:21:30.240 --> 0:21:33.560 gave all kinds of things, Lots of little dolls, lots 0:21:33.600 --> 0:21:36.560 of little teddy bears. There must be forty teddy bears. 0:21:37.160 --> 0:21:40.880 Lori Labar is chief curator of History and Decorative Arts 0:21:40.920 --> 0:21:44.159 at the Main State Museum in Augusta. She's showing me 0:21:44.240 --> 0:21:47.080 the gifts that Samantha Smith received on her trip to 0:21:47.119 --> 0:21:50.919 the Soviet Union in the summer of three, including a 0:21:51.000 --> 0:21:55.400 samovar from the Kremlin. This is beautiful. It's a tea urn. Essentially, 0:21:56.320 --> 0:21:58.520 most tea goes in there, and the water goes in there. 0:21:59.080 --> 0:22:03.200 And what did these gifts mean? I think they were 0:22:03.240 --> 0:22:07.360 gifts of friendship, someone saying thank you for coming, Welcome 0:22:08.080 --> 0:22:10.440 to my world. But at the heart of it, Samantha 0:22:10.520 --> 0:22:14.520 was essentially saying, why can't we be friends? That's exactly 0:22:14.520 --> 0:22:15.960 what she was saying. That was the whole trip. She 0:22:16.040 --> 0:22:18.960 spent two weeks saying why can't we be friends. When 0:22:18.960 --> 0:22:22.480 they arrived in Moscow, Samantha, who had just turned to Levin, 0:22:22.680 --> 0:22:26.040 and her parents, Arthur and Jane, were greeted by guides 0:22:26.080 --> 0:22:29.280 from the Soviet Friendship Society. They paid for the trip, 0:22:29.800 --> 0:22:32.960 and Samantha gave a brief press conference for the thirty 0:22:33.080 --> 0:22:35.680 or so reporters who would follow her on her trip. 0:22:36.359 --> 0:22:40.440 He promised me that he wouldn't He wouldn't start a war. 0:22:40.640 --> 0:22:43.720 Russia wouldn't start a war, and we America says that 0:22:44.720 --> 0:22:48.280 they won't start a war either. Then how can we 0:22:48.359 --> 0:22:52.960 keep making both for a warfare no one started? According 0:22:53.000 --> 0:22:57.080 to Samantha's mother, the Smith's Soviet hosts asked the family 0:22:57.160 --> 0:23:00.200 what they'd like to see, and then proceeded to help 0:23:00.240 --> 0:23:03.960 the family what they were going to see. Samantha visited 0:23:04.080 --> 0:23:08.800 Lennon's tomb, She tried chicken Kiev. She met Valentina Tereshkova, 0:23:09.040 --> 0:23:14.120 the first female cosmonaut. Not everything went as planned. At 0:23:14.160 --> 0:23:18.160 one point, the Soviet made limousine baring the Smith's broke down. 0:23:18.400 --> 0:23:23.719 It was hastily replaced. Now, the US government avoided taking 0:23:23.800 --> 0:23:27.320 any official position on Samantha's trip, not wanting to co 0:23:27.480 --> 0:23:30.920 sign a Soviet propaganda ploy. I think they were very 0:23:30.960 --> 0:23:34.120 worried because, you know, there could have been an accident. 0:23:34.760 --> 0:23:36.920 She could have been a tool of the Soviet Union, 0:23:37.160 --> 0:23:41.000 a propaganda duke. Yes, exactly Before they even left on 0:23:41.040 --> 0:23:45.040 their trip, the Smith family was flooded with letters, many 0:23:45.160 --> 0:23:49.160 from relatives of Soviet Jews desperate to leave the country. 0:23:49.600 --> 0:23:53.240 The family shied away from any particular cause beyond peace, 0:23:53.600 --> 0:23:56.640 but passed a packet of the letters along. They two 0:23:56.680 --> 0:24:01.280 were worried about Samantha being a propaganda pawn. Once during 0:24:01.320 --> 0:24:04.960 the trip, a group of students asked Samantha to sign 0:24:04.960 --> 0:24:08.840 a petition that condemned US foreign policy, but one of 0:24:08.840 --> 0:24:11.840 her Soviet guides swooped in before she could sign it. 0:24:12.359 --> 0:24:16.480 When Samantha and her parents visited Red Square, her father Arthur, 0:24:16.600 --> 0:24:19.480 was asked to lay a flower wreath on the tomb 0:24:19.480 --> 0:24:22.919 of the Unknown Soldier, a monument to the Soviet World 0:24:22.920 --> 0:24:26.520 War two dead. Afraid to offend his hosts, he went 0:24:26.520 --> 0:24:31.320 ahead and did it. Fortunately this was before Twitter. Be 0:24:31.680 --> 0:24:39.760 glad Samantha was already a household name and face across 0:24:39.840 --> 0:24:42.760 the Soviet Union. As she put it herself, it's a 0:24:42.800 --> 0:24:45.840 funny feeling to see articles about yourself with pictures in 0:24:45.840 --> 0:24:49.440 a newspaper you can't read. Most surprising to the Russian 0:24:49.440 --> 0:24:53.199 readers following her every move, Samantha had been invited to 0:24:53.320 --> 0:24:56.840 Camp ar Tech on the Crimean Peninsula. It's a place 0:24:56.960 --> 0:25:01.000 every Soviet kid dreamed of going. ARC Tech is one 0:25:01.040 --> 0:25:04.480 place that Soviet leader Urion drop Off really wanted Samantha 0:25:04.560 --> 0:25:07.359 to see, to meet and talk with kids her own age, 0:25:07.680 --> 0:25:10.520 and to see for herself that everyone in the Soviet 0:25:10.600 --> 0:25:17.919 Union wants peace and friendship. When it was Natalia Rosten, 0:25:17.960 --> 0:25:21.120 I'm a teacher. It's been a long time since I've 0:25:21.200 --> 0:25:25.560 sat in a second grade classroom chair. It's actually been 0:25:26.040 --> 0:25:31.040 I guess, uh forty five years. But it feels nice. Yes, 0:25:31.119 --> 0:25:33.640 I'm sitting in a chair made for a second grader. 0:25:34.000 --> 0:25:37.679 And no, it actually doesn't feel nice. Yeah, and it's 0:25:37.720 --> 0:25:40.240 the right size for this desk with the chairs and 0:25:40.400 --> 0:25:44.720 totally needs won't fit. Natalia Roston now teaches second grade 0:25:44.760 --> 0:25:48.560 in Los Angeles, but during Samantha's visit, she was a 0:25:48.560 --> 0:25:52.240 Soviet kid raised in the city then called Lennon Grad 0:25:52.560 --> 0:25:55.560 and a camper at Camp ar Tech. I think you 0:25:55.600 --> 0:25:58.359 and I around the same age. What year were you born? 0:25:59.040 --> 0:26:05.360 As was I teen? Sixteen nine one January? Oh yeah, 0:26:05.480 --> 0:26:08.720 I sure you. My parents didn't go to Woodstock, There's 0:26:08.800 --> 0:26:12.520 no way. Natalia was the daughter of an engineer and 0:26:12.600 --> 0:26:15.280 an English teacher. She felt lucky to be at ar 0:26:15.359 --> 0:26:18.000 Tech since it was the crown jewel of what we're 0:26:18.040 --> 0:26:21.520 known as pioneer camps. I think boy Scout or Girl 0:26:21.600 --> 0:26:25.400 Scout camp, but communist. Was it a pretty big deal 0:26:25.440 --> 0:26:28.240 when you found out you were going to go, oh yeah, 0:26:28.480 --> 0:26:29.919 It was pretty big guilt to me, and it was 0:26:29.920 --> 0:26:31.960 pretty big guilt to my friends. We were all extatic 0:26:32.040 --> 0:26:33.560 because it was it was like winning a lot of 0:26:33.600 --> 0:26:36.880 I mean, it was a huge privilege. Natalia was not 0:26:37.040 --> 0:26:40.280 from the elite. When I got to camp, I found 0:26:40.280 --> 0:26:43.320 out that there was a group of kids from political 0:26:43.359 --> 0:26:45.440 elite that were the year of the year of the year. 0:26:45.480 --> 0:26:49.280 They treated Artech as a regular summer camp, but most 0:26:49.320 --> 0:26:52.440