Samantha Smith helped bring end to Soviet rule

Saturday, September 3, 2005

In response to your cover story on Samantha Smith on Aug. 21: Studying history, especially Soviet history, is one of my specialties. Smith conducted a natural action that was overlooked by your reporter and others who claim to be experts in Soviet history.

When Smith was in the Soviet Union, there was a day on which she was on television that was broadcast throughout the Soviet Union and other communist countries. She was dressed in a Young Pioneers uniform. (That is the communist version of the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts.) She wasn't wearing a red bandana around her neck like the official uniform to signify she was a communist. The Soviet premier and other officials were standing behind her.

Then another girl walked up to her and took off her red cloth from around her own neck and went to hand it to Smith. Smith then placed her hand on top of the other girl's, which held the cloth and pushed it down while saying "no." Right there, all the communists who were watching this were shocked. Here was a pre-teen saying "no" to communism. A number of them thought, "If she can say no to communism, why can't we?" That's when the people's uprising against communism started.

Obviously, all that information was censored in our society. People want to give praise to Ronald Reagan for ending the Soviet empire. The truth is it was Smith who sparked the whole "glasnost" on that day.

Douglas Papa

Augusta