Samantha Smith

Samantha Reed Smith (June 29, 1972 – August 25, 1985) was an American schoolgirl, peace activist, child actress and female child model from Manchester, Maine, who became famous during the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. In 1982, Smith wrote a letter to the newly appointed CPSU General Secretary Yuri Andropov, and received a personal reply with a personal invitation to visit the Soviet Union, which she accepted. Smith attracted extensive media attention in both countries as a "Goodwill Ambassador", becoming known as America's Youngest Ambassador and subsequently participating in peacemaking activities in Japan. With the assistance of her father Arthur (an academic), she wrote a book about her visit to the Soviet Union, Journey to the Soviet Union, and later became a child actress, hosting a child-orientated special on the 1984 United States presidential election for The Disney Channel and playing a co-starring role in the television series Lime Street, before her death at the age of thirteen on August 25, 1985 in the Bar Harbor Airlines Flight 1808 plane crash.