The Letters Samantha's Letter to Adropov: Dear Mr. Andropov, My

The Letters

Samantha’s Letter to Adropov:

Dear Mr. Andropov,

My name is Samantha Smith. I am ten years old.

Congratulations on your new job. I have been worrying

about Russia and the United States getting into a nuclear

war. Are you going to vote to have a war or not? If you

aren't please tell me how you are going to help to not have a

war. This question you do not have to answer, but I would

like to know why you want to conquer the world or at least

our country. God made the world for us to live together in

peace and not to fight.

Sincerely,

Samantha Smith

Response from Y. Andropov

Dear Samantha,

I received your letter, which is like many others that have reached me recently

from your country and from other countries around the world.

It seems to me – I can tell by your letter – that you are a courageous and

honest girl, resembling Becky, the friend of Tom Sawyer in the famous book of

your compatriot Mark Twain. This book is well known and loved in our country by

all boys and girls.

You write that you are anxious about whether there will be a nuclear war

between our two countries. And you ask are we doing anything so that war will

not break out. Your question is the most important of those that every thinking

man can pose. I will reply to you seriously and honestly.

Yes, Samantha, we in the Soviet Union are trying to do everything so that there

will not be war on Earth. This is what every Soviet man wants. This is what the

great founder of our state, Vladimir Lenin, taught us. Soviet people well know

what a terrible thing war is. Forty-two years ago, Nazi Germany, which strove for

supremacy over the whole world, attacked our country, burned and destroyed

many thousands of our towns and villages, killed millions of Soviet men, women

and children.

In that war, which ended with our victory, we were in alliance with the United

States: together we fought for the liberation of many people from the Nazi

invaders. I hope that you know about this from your history lessons in school.

And today we want very much to live in peace, to trade and cooperate with all

our neighbours on this earth — with those far away and those nearby. And

certainly with such a great country as the United States of America.

In America and in our country there are nuclear weapons — terrible weapons

that can kill millions of people in an instant. But we do not want them to be ever

used. That's precisely why the Soviet Union solemnly declared throughout the

entire world that never — never — will it use nuclear weapons first against any

country. In general we propose to discontinue further production of them and to

proceed to the abolition of all the stockpiles on Earth.

It seems to me that this is a sufficient answer to your second question: 'Why do

you want to wage war against the whole world or at least the United States?' We

want nothing of the kind. No one in our country–neither workers, peasants,

writers nor doctors, neither grown-ups nor children, nor members of the

government–want either a big or 'little' war.

We want peace — there is something that we are occupied with: growing wheat,

building and inventing, writing books and flying into space. We want peace for

ourselves and for all peoples of the planet. For our children and for you,

Samantha.