In 1982, Samantha Smith, a ten year old girl from Maine wrote a letter to Soviet leader Yuri Andropov expressing her concern that a nuclear war would break out between the United States and Russia. She asked if he was going to vote to have a war and why he wanted to conquer the world, or at least the United States. The following year, Samantha was surprised to receive a letter back from Andropov assuring her that Russia only wanted peace. He invited Samantha to visit the Soviet Union for two weeks to spend time in Moscow, St. Petersburg and Artek summer camp in Crimea where she would get to meet children her own age.
That summer, Samantha and her parents departed for the USSR. The Russian people - many of them having never met an American before - were fascinated by Samantha and marveled that she was just like any other little girl. For two weeks, Samantha toured Russia and made close friends who still remember and speak of her today. Upon returning to the United States, Samantha was greeted with fame, media attention and celebrity when Hollywood began calling.
Tragically, Samantha and her father were killed in 1985 when the small plane they were on crashed due to inclement weather. All but forgotten now in the United States, Samantha is still widely remembered and celebrated in Russia, which has memorialized her on a postage stamp and given her name to an asteroid, a Siberian diamond, a mountain and a sea vessel. Artek camp devoted its new session of the 2017 season to Samantha, Samantha's Smile, to which Vladimir Putin gave the opening address.
Now with relations between the United States and Russia reaching a critical point never before seen, one wonders what Samantha would have to say about it and what she would do. Or would she be able to do anything? A phenomenon unique to this new Cold War situation is that public discourse on the topic has been attacked and shut down. Rational voices urging restraint are being silenced left and right. Anyone who displays a coherent knowledge of history and geopolitics and argues against the persistent demonization of Russia and Putin are immediately attacked and denigrated into silence. Labeled as "Putin puppets/apologists" or "useful idiots" or "Russian bots", those of us who put time and effort into learning about our situation in the hopes of understanding and averting it are forced into silence by a government and media agenda to drag us into a confrontation with another nuclear power. I have to believe the Samantha Smith's are still out there but they've been bullied and frightened into silence.
Inspired by Samantha's story and haunted by vivid dreams of nuclear war with Russia, I set out on my own journey to understand how we got here historically and geopolitically. It's been an eye-opening experience but I too have remained silent for fear of vilification. No longer. I am going to use this medium as my voice to speak out against this increasingly dangerous situation because I don't think I could live with myself otherwise. The world is becoming increasingly irrational and we need more rational minds to argue restraint and push for peace. It's the best way we can honor courageous souls like Samantha and the greatest gift we can offer our children and grandchildren.
