Before leaving Moscow, Smith held a news conference in which she said goodbye to her new friends in the Soviet Union and said the Russians were just like Americans.
Though Andropov was ill and could not meet with Samantha, he gave her a letter to read, which she did on television. He said the Soviet Union was dedicated to peace.
Dana Summers' editorial cartoon in the Orlando Sentinel references a comment Jimmy Carter made during a debate with Ronald Reagan in 1980. He said asked his 13-year-old daughter, Amy, what the most important issue was and she replied that it was the control of nuclear arms.
The text in the cartoon reads, "I wanted Mr. Andropov to understand that nuclear proliferation is the most important issue . . . at least that's what it says in Amy Carter's notebook that the White House gave me!"
Like Amy Carter, Samantha Smith publicly expressed concerns about the nuclear arms race.
The Cold War had heated up in 1983 with Ronald Reagan's "evil empire" speech, the Soviet shooting down of a Korean Airline passenger jet, and Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative ("Star Wars").
