Samantha Smith vs. the Cold War with Maris Kreizman

Who really ended the Cold War, Ronald Reagan or a ten-year-old girl? Eighties correspondent Maris Kreizman joins us for a heartfelt conversation about America’s Youngest Ambassador, Samantha Smith, a child who wrote a letter to Soviet General Secretary Yuri Andropov in hopes of cooling nuclear tensions. Then, Andropov wrote back. Maris and Sarah discuss the burden we place on the youth to “change the world” while simultaneously scolding them for their naivety. Digressions include the millennial urge to cut up plastic soda can rings, Christina Applegate’s SNL infomercial, and an important lesson from the Golden Girls.

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Transcript

YWA - Samantha Smith

Sarah: It's not like New Zealand was like, oh no, I couldn't possibly have all the nuclear arms people are trying to give me.

Welcome to You’re Wrong About. I'm Sarah Marshall. It is the fall, and we are joined today by our 80’s correspondent Maris Kreitzman, author of I Want to Burn This Place Down. 

We're going to have a conversation today about the Cold War, about what it was like to be a kid in the eighties, about the responsibilities that we put on children as adults in a world where we feel, perhaps, a little bit too much license to be cynical. And more than anything, about a 10-year-old girl named Samantha Smith, who did everything that she could to remind us of our shared humanity. 

We are also going to talk just a little bit about the Golden Girls. I loved having this conversation with Maris today about both a topic that came to mean a lot to us, and also about what it's like to inhabit a world where your youthful idealism has to galvanize into something that you are able to keep feeling and living and doing day by day, and what exists in the place between idealism and cynicism. And I'm very happy to go to that place with you. 

We also loved getting to talk about the book that we read to research this topic, which is America's Youngest Ambassador by Lena Nelson. There's so much more to this story than we could get into. Please seek it out and read it, and also go to samanthasmith.info.

We also have, as always, some very fun bonus episodes for you on Patreon and Apple+. And our most recent one with Hollywood correspondent Eve Lindley is about, of course, Elvira Mistress of the Dark, and Cassandra Peterson, the woman behind the boobs. 

Thank you so much for being here. Thank you for taking this journey with us and for continuing your own journey day by day. Here's your episode.

Welcome to You’re Wrong About, the podcast, where apparently we are doing chapters in the life of Ronald Reagan. I didn't plan it this way, but I'm always thinking about Reagan. And with me today is Maris Kreitzman, author of the aptly named, I Want to Burn This Place Down.

Maris: Yes, indeed.

Sarah: Maris. Oh my God. Welcome. 

Maris: I'm so happy to be here. This is the one place I don't want to burn down, I promise.

Sarah: Oh, I know. And here comes my cat. So there you go. Just to emphasize that point. Yeah. We're going to talk about Reagan. 

Maris: Sure are. 

Sarah: That's true. Yeah. I love you. Oh my God. Maris, how are you doing today? 

Maris: It's a weird time, but all things considered: I've got a healthy dog, healthy husband. We're doing ok. How are you?

Sarah: Yep. Same. I'm eating cherry tomatoes.

Maris: Good. Tis the season.

Sarah: I grew some cherry tomatoes, not as many as I would like. I want to grow so many cherry tomatoes that I'm like, I don't even know what to do with all of these.

I just wake up and I have to eat cherry tomatoes for a whole hour. Woe is me.

Maris: That's going to be me and apples very soon.

Sarah: Yeah. Oh yes. Are you going apple picking? 

Maris: Ooh, I should.

Sarah: Yeah.

Maris: I feel like that's something I did a lot as a kid, and then I would have to get out of New York City, but that seems like a good idea. 

Sarah: That's what New York City really needs is a pumpkin patch. I bet the answer is parts of New Jersey: where do you get your pumpkin patch action? 

Maris: Yeah, that is where, or upstate New York.

Sarah: Of course.

Maris: Hudson Valley.

Sarah: Yeah. Can't forget the apples of upstate New York; I would never.
 
 Well, Maris, and you grew up in New Jersey, and you grew up in the eighties, and that's part of our topic today. 

Maris: Yes.

Sarah: I would say is basically the concept of a Cold War childhood. And I wonder if you would like to start us off by maybe telling us a little bit about what that was like, and then I have a clip that perhaps will also help us.

Maris: I can't wait. Yeah. I've tried to remember my own experience, and I feel like my experience worrying about nuclear war is so shaped by the pop culture that I experienced.

Sarah: Yeah, that's how I experienced time and space for sure. Yeah. 

Maris: Right? And just like other people's fear, I remember in the movie Great Balls of Fire, which is the Jerry Lee Lewis story.

Sarah: Which is a weird movie because it's like should he have married his 13-year-old cousin? Well kind of no, but maybe, yeah, it's Winona Ryder and you're like, hmmmm. 

Maris: And the way they first start hooking up is they're watching a documentary about what nuclear war can do. And again, that was in the fifties.

Sarah: That will make you have some (I'm afraid of dying) sex. I'm sure. 

Maris: Absolutely. And my mom would tell me stories about nuclear war drills where you would have to get under your desk. 

Sarah: Yeah, my mom too. As if that was going to do anything. Just wild.

How do you feel about the Twilight Zone on that topic?

Maris: I don’t know much about it.

Sarah: Are you a Twilight Zone person?

Maris: No.

Sarah: Okay. It's a great show. It's really, especially in the summertime, it's a great watch. And by the way, it's summer until the autumn equinox. It is summer until September 22nd. You have at it.

Maris: Yes. 

Sarah: And I don't know about you, but because of climate change, last year I was growing tomatoes until Thanksgiving, and that's horrifying. But you know, you get tomatoes. We're at the part where we get tomatoes.

Maris: Break out the dresses while you still can.

Sarah: Yeah. Let's bring out the booze and have a ball if that's all there is.

Maris: Yes.

Sarah: You also have an essay in your book – which I love – about basically living in climate change while taking care of a pug who has some health issues, and I just really loved it so much. I feel like in the eighties, and I was born in the late eighties so I have a memory of us having – this is my very specific little Cold War kind of memory that happened late – where we had a sticker on our door because my dad was from New Zealand, I'm sure I’ve told you this story before, that said: New Zealand, No Nuclear Arms. Like: Ha ha!

And by the way, now that I think about it, who was offering New Zealand any nuclear arms? It's not like New Zealand was like: oh no, I couldn't possibly have all the nuclear arms people are trying to give me.

Which is a great quality in a country to not be offered nuclear arms as far as I know. Maybe somebody did. I don't know.

Maris: Yeah.

Sarah: But anyway, I remember my mom, I was like, what does that sticker mean? And being like seven, so well into the Clinton administration, which you also write about, and understanding suddenly the concept of nuclear arms in the Cold War is basically, as far as I assimilated it, the constant fear of sudden annihilation. Or worse, being far enough away from the sudden annihilation zone that you have to survive nuclear winter, which as far as I know is what The Day After Tomorrow, which is a TV movie that scared the shit out of everybody who saw it in the early eighties, is about.

Maris: Right? Yes.

Sarah: But the fear of suddenly blinking out of existence if you're a child who's already prone to anxiety is really sticky in your brain because you're like, oh my God, it could happen at any second: like this one or the next one. It was sheer luck that I got through that last second.

Maris: Especially if the lights flicker.

Sarah: Yes. You're like, oh God, this is it. And then you hear about end of the world prophecies. I don't know about you, but I was a fully formed human being with a working brain at this point. But in 1999, I was like, but what if the world ends in the year 2000?

Maris: Did end, yeah.

Sarah: Because people were saying that and I was like, I don't know, could be.

Maris: Listen, I don't think there are any guarantees.

Sarah: That's the thing. 

Maris: That's the thing. But I do like the moving timeline. The doomsday sayers just keep moving it up and are off a couple years.

Sarah: Yeah, it's like a deadline. They're like, oh, we'll get it together next time. Give us another quarter.

Well, my dad actually helped me, in classic New Zealand no-nuclear-arms fashion, with my fear of the world ending at the dawn of the year 2000, because he was like, Sarah – it’s a terrible impression, I’m not saying it's a good impression, I just have to do an accent when I talk about him – Sarah, what about the time zones? It's surely not New Zealand time.

Maris: Yeah, certainly.

Sarah: Would it be Greenwich Mean Time that the world would end? In which case the world would end at four for most Americans, which would be unfair. 

Maris: I remember that though.

Sarah: Yeah.

Maris: When on December 31st, 1999, at 4:00 PM, we were like, whew, at least part of the world has already made it.

Sarah: Right? You're like, there they are in France in the year 2000. 

Maris: The wild thing to me is that there was ever such thing as a doomsday clock. That is so goth.

Sarah: And now we don't have to be scary. Things just are, you know…

Maris: Things are just unpredictable and messed up all the time.

Sarah: I would say even scarier at this point is the thing, because the fear of the people we're sharing a country with feels… and I say that as a white person.

Maris: Yes.

Sarah: I think that there's also this feeling, because you write about the Clinton administration in your book, and that was a time of such economic optimism for the middle class and arguably working-class Americans.

And it feels like what's happened in the time since then is that even people who generally have been lucky in the past are feeling their feet consumed by the stomach acid of late capitalism. That was a gross metaphor.

Maris: Ooh, that's a good metaphor. I like that a lot. I feel it.

Sarah: Because I feel like what one of the themes in what you write about is growing up in a scary time, but also growing up with a lot of idealism.

Maris: Yeah.

Sarah: And then figuring out what to do with that as an adult. 

Maris: Yeah. So one of the things I write about is when I was 12 years old, my parents took me to the pre-election night Bill Clinton rally at the Meadowlands in New Jersey, and it was like a rock star was going to perform for us, but he only plays a little bit of saxophone sometimes.

And I remember feeling so hopeful. And feeling like that the adults around me also felt so hopeful. 

Sarah: Yeah.

Maris: That here was this man who was really going to change everything and then, Sarah, the cast of Les Misérables came out onto the stage and sang “One Day More.” 

Sarah: How do you not just go all out for Clinton at that point; you're just like, I'll give you whatever you want.

And then Fleetwood Mac comes out and you're like, oh my God. 

Maris: Yeah.

Sarah: I forget about all the women whose lives you destroyed. You know, that's my impression of America.

Maris: 100%. And he made some pretty good promises, you know. 

Sarah: Yeah. And a lot of them came true a little bit, you know, there was kind of a period…

Maris: Sort of.

Sarah: Yeah, sort of. And also through sheer luck it would seem, but economically and in terms of foreign policy, things felt like they calmed down a bit.

Maris: Yeah.

Sarah: But also as a follow-up act, not complete nuclear disarmament, that actually has never happened.

Maris: No, of course not.

Sarah: But you know, through the end of nuclear proliferation as we once knew it, and through a feeling of at least basically the end of the Cold War being that, in part the United States and the former Soviet Union agreed to begin to decrease their nuclear arms, gradually, to an extent.

And we were like, alright, it's probably good.

Maris: Sarah, it was world peace at the time. It was 1987. It was like, we did it world.

Sarah: Yeah. It was a lot closer than it had ever been, you know? Because it does really seem as if… What were you afraid of? Did you have specific kind of nuclear related fears? 

Maris: Yes I did. And of course, yes, I was always most concerned about being a survivor. I was not interested in that at all. But I think the other thing is thinking about mutually assured destruction.

Sarah: Right.

Maris: That feels like such a thing for right at this moment.

Such a small line prevents the person in charge of pressing the button. And I think, in my head, it was bad when the Republicans were in charge, whoever they were, but especially Reagan, your fave.

Sarah: My favorite little boy. Yeah.

Maris: And so you have the Berlin wall coming down, you have the USSR dismantled, and you have a Democrat in office.

This was our time, this was going to be…

Sarah: Yeah.

Maris: And we are almost post feminism, you know.

Sarah: Right, we were like, we're going to achieve the goals of feminism in 18 months. We're pretty sure. 

Maris: It makes me feel so naive, but also so grateful that I got to experience that pure hope.

Sarah: I know. Do you ever think about Global Village Coffeehouse aesthetic? Because I think about it all the time. 

Maris: Yes. And that's part of it too, right? When the internet was very young, information was harder to access. I know that's very obvious.

Sarah: But it's not necessarily, because if you didn't used to have the internet, you can't guess what it was like.

Maris: Yeah, it did make finding out about other people and how they lived – it made it really difficult. You had to rely on what the news showed you or what a friend's grandma said; it was a lot harder to understand the problems in the world, and also the lovely things.

Sarah: And that is really one of the themes of what we're talking about today, because what we're going to talk about, we are going to tell a bittersweet tale of the Cold War, but we're going lead into it obviously by discussing The Golden Girls, and specifically an episode called, Letter to Gorbachev.

Maris: Perfect.

Sarah: Are you a Golden Girls fan, to start?

Maris: Oh, yes.

Sarah: Yeah. And I feel Golden Girls and Designing Women are sister shows, sassy sister shows, in a way.

Maris: I like that.

Sarah: Right. I was watching this episode – and also, I just have to connect it to this (I'm sorry, I've been through a lot with the show): The Golden Girls is what And Just Like That should have been, which is women in sisterhood having sex with random guys, and none of that happened. And I'm still mad. And they're like the same age, and let me just say, Rue McClanahan got so much more action than anyone in And Just Like That. And there's a reason.

Maris: The costumes were still fabulous too, you know.

Sarah: Yeah.

Maris: Nothing was lacking there.

Sarah: The costumes, the furniture. I'm trying to decorate my house like The Golden Girls house all the time. And so specifically – and tell me if you remember this – there was an episode in 1987 that I must have seen as a kid where Rose, who's played by Betty White, she's from St. Olaf, Minnesota.

Maris: Famously.

Sarah: And she's famously, I don't know; Rose is like a Tom Cullen in The Stand type character: she seems really simple, but then she's deep.

Maris: Uh-huh.

Sarah: She's also a bit of a Charlotte. She's the wise fool. She's Parsifal, she's the Fisher King, et cetera. 

Maris: I love that. Yeah. And the wide-eyed innocence followed by a real sassy comment is why we love her.

Sarah: Yeah, exactly. And so in this episode, Rose writes a letter to Gorbachev because she is leading like a Girl Scout-esque group of girls. And she writes saying, “My name is Rose Nylund, and I am worried about nuclear war because the girls in my fake Girl Scout troop talk about if they grow up, not when they grow up. And what are you going to do about this? I'm concerned.”

So it causes there to be a big media event and press conference when the Soviets respond to her letter. She's also written to Reagan, but he didn't answer.

Maris: I don't think I knew this, Sarah: the parallels.

Sarah: Right? And she's written, please call our president, but don't call in the afternoon, that's when Reagan takes his naps. That's a classic Rose zinger.

Maris: Perfect. Yep.

Sarah: Yeah. Where she's – I think the great thing about Rose is that you got read by her but so innocently that you're like, God, that must be true. She's not even saying it in a mean way. 

And so comedy arises when it turns out that the Soviets thought that Rose was a little girl and not Betty White, a grown woman.

And so it seems like she's written a really like ridiculous letter and she feels really embarrassed, but then Blanche reads her letter, and it turns out to be very profound and deep, and to have basically this message of “why can't we just sort this out?” Because the kids don't want this to happen.

And so, I learned about the world as you learned about the world and as so many of us do through sitcoms and sitcom jokes, so much of the time.

Maris: Of course.

Sarah: This episode was fun because I forget how often in these old sitcoms that are just full of great jokes, the audience is just going like absolutely bananas.

And it made me think of lately, I have been unable to stop watching the – I think classic – iconic Christina Applegate Saturday Night Live sketch from the early nineties where she plays Cher in the Focus on Beauty infomercial. Do you remember this? 

Maris: Gosh, I wish I had your references, Sarah. I have to brush up.

Sarah: I guess I have to send it to you because it'll bring you joy.

Maris: Please.

Sarah: It’ll just get stuck in your head because they have Chris Farley as Lori Davis, haircare expert, being like: “Do you girls use hairspray?” And Melanie Hutsell saying, “I use it, but I hate it.” And I think that once a day. I am like, I use it, but I hate it. And it's funny because it's seven minutes long, and it's just a representation of how infomercials were people just saying the same thing over and over again. 

Maris: At three in the morning usually. Yeah. 

Sarah: At three in the morning, and it was boring, but in kind of a way that set your soul free because real life was never that boring.

Maris: Oh yeah.

Sarah: And so, I know I must have seen this episode of Golden Girls at one time, and I don't know if it was through that or not, I also learned that at one time in the eighties, there had been a 10-year-old girl named Samantha Smith who had written a letter to the then leader of the Soviet Union.

This was in the fall of 1982. Oh my gosh. What was his first name? Is it Yuri Andropov? 

Maris: Yuri, yeah

Sarah: Oh my gosh. Thank you. Look at that, Yuri Andropov. And when she didn't get a response, she wrote to the Soviet embassy saying, why haven't I gotten a response to my letter, by the way? 

Maris: Such a beautiful act of entitlement.

Sarah: Yes.

And I believed – I think as a kid when I learned about this – somehow for years, that she had basically ended the Cold War. And then I feel like I learned at some point, no, this happened in the early eighties and really things were longer and more complicated. And then in researching the story, I’m like: I don't know, I think she did kind of end the Cold War. 

Maris: I think it really does get back to my point about the internet. She was the first person who allowed Americans to see how Soviet Russians lived. And of course, they didn't show everything…

Sarah: Yeah.

Maris: as Johnny Carson so aptly asked her, but it was enough to see that these were human beings. Happy children, some of them, and people who could be just like you and me.

Sarah: Yeah, and the idea that our ability to envision each other as human beings, and especially to envision a country having children in it, is shaped by how much we're able to see and what technology brings us and what media chooses to bring us or has access to.

Maris: Absolutely. And that was the time of the Iron Curtain when there was no important export of culture from the Soviet Union, which of course, I think is a great example of how to create a monster in the minds of people who don't know anything better. And Reagan called them the evil empire at around that time and gave us a lot to fear.

Sarah: You're telepathically reading my notes, which I think I knew would happen.

So I just sent you – this is from samanthasmithinfo.com – and this is the letter that she wrote to Yuri Andropov in the fall of 1982. And I would love for you to read this to us. 

Maris: Yes. I actually have America's Youngest Ambassador.

Sarah: Oh my God. 

Maris: I was able to find a used copy for not that much. So I have my own version here.

Dear Mr. Andropov, my name is Samantha Smith. I am 10 years old. Congratulations on your new job. I have been worrying about Russia and the United States getting into a nuclear war.

 Also, every time you hear Samantha pronounce that word, it's “nuke-u-lar,” which is so funny.

Sarah: I love that. Yeah.

Maris: 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 it if you would. Why do you want to conquer the world or at least our country? God made the world for us to share and take care of, not to fight over or have one group of people own it all.

Please let’s do what he wanted and have everybody be happy too.

Samantha Smith, Manchester, Maine, USA, Box 44, 04351. P.S. Please write back. 

Sarah: Tell me your thoughts on that letter. 

Maris: I love that the story is that Samantha asked her mom to write to Andropov because she was worried about nuclear war, and her mom said, “Why don't you write the letter?”

And it is so beautifully earnest and so unafraid. Who wouldn't love that? It’s hard to remember a time when I wasn't so cynical, but there was, and it had to be in my younger years, and this is a breath of fresh air.

Sarah: Yeah. And one of the things that you write about is taking part in events and walking to cure diabetes.

Maris: Yes.

Sarah: Which makes me think of two things: which is a) if you ever thought about how do I get insulin in a post nuclear war type situation? 

Maris: Yes, of course.

Sarah: Where do you do that?

Maris: We know where the Eli Lilly factory is.

Sarah: Okay.

Maris: And we have emergency plans to get there; by we, it's three people from the internet and me.

Sarah: Yep, you have got to know. And then one of the things you talk about – I don't know – that gets to me, feels like a definition maybe of youthful idealism being confronted by history where when you're young, you believe that entities, including the pharmaceutical industries, will attempt to cure diabetes.

Maris: Yes.

Sarah: And now, in a way that you say you never imagined, they're like: what if we just make insulin cost so much money? What if it becomes a luxury item? That would be something, right?

Maris: That would be something, and GoFundMe would just be full of people begging for money to buy the insulin that was supposed to be affordable for everyone: the patent of which was sold for a dollar when it was invented a hundred years ago.

Sarah: Yeah.

Maris: And so, in the eighties, that framing was everywhere: we are going to cure diabetes. It wasn't like, we're going to incrementally make your life a little bit better. We're going to make improvements. We're going to invent new technologies to ameliorate the problems with the disease.

It was like: one day you're going to wake up, and you're going to have a shot, and then you'll be able to eat ice cream for breakfast again. 

Sarah: It feels like the idea of cure versus care is interesting too, because it's easier to sell people on action if they can be heroic maybe, than if they can take part in ongoing effort and caretaking it seems.

Maris: Absolutely. And the JDRF – which is what it was called then: Juvenile Diabetes Foundation – was really good at the marketing of that, that every single person is going to walk for a cure. 

Sarah: Yeah. 

Maris: Especially if they have been taking money from the drug companies all along.

Sarah: Yeah, and that this idea that focusing on developing a cure for something is so important that it's possible to not even perhaps imagine that one day, the mere treatment for a condition will become out of reach for people. 

Maris: And this is at a time when – it was during the AIDS crisis – we are going to cure AIDS too. It wasn't like we are going to make this disease with which you can live for a number of years, happily and healthfully. It was: we're going to eradicate this from the world. And as we've seen, it's just not that simple. 

Sarah: Yeah. And do you remember the story from when it took place at all? Because you would've been a little kid. This was spring of 1983 that this showed up in the news, I think. 

Maris: I was real little, but I do remember the idea of a youth diplomat.

Sarah: Yeah.

Maris: It sounds like something – it would've been a few years after that – like a role for the Olson twins and some made for TV movie: the littlest diplomats.

Sarah: It’s like How the West Was Fun, but a different pun having to do with Russia. Yeah.

Maris: Exactly. And it was very much about how, if you're a kid and you just speak your mind, you can be the change in the world that you want to see. 

Sarah: Yeah, and it feels like part of an optimism that I even remember from the nineties, this idea of “you know what, kids can change the world.” And then you look back on it, because what I remember about the nineties is that we were starting to get into a certain form of environmentalism that's very different from what I think we see today culturally, but a lot of it was focused on “let's save the monarch butterfly, let's save seals.”

Which is great obviously, but it's because we hadn't progressed to: oh my God, let's save everything, and ourselves as well. We’re like: seals!

Maris: Yes, start with seals.

Sarah: And one of the things I remember is that they really taught kids about seabirds getting their heads stuck in six pack plastic soda can rings.

And I did not let a plastic soda can ring carrier leave the house for years without being chopped up into oblivion. If I'm being honest, I still don't. People just buy soda in cases now.

Maris: Every now and then I will see those six rings, and the first thought is okay, but you have to cut them up. 

Sarah: Yeah. You're like, you have got to save a bird.

And then sometimes you can't find scissors and you're just doing it with your bare hands and you're like, I can't not, I'm going to lie awake thinking about the birds I'm killing.

Maris: Absolutely. And later – it was much later – it was plastic straws.

Sarah: Yeah, the straw thing is hard because we were pushing paper straws hard for a while, and those are not the way.

Maris: Those are no good.

Sarah: It's terrible to be given an iced coffee – it’s like being given an iced coffee by Jigsaw: You have seven minutes to drink this ice coffee, otherwise you will find yourself eating papery mush. Make your choice.

That was a terrible Jigsaw impression.

But I feel, of course we should have been cutting up all these plastic soda can rings. But also I feel like somewhere in there was this feeling of – in retrospect – why do the children have to do so much work? You're the adults: you have money and companies that you run, and resources, and access to infrastructure, and you're asking children to be the conscience of a country. Kind of like Greta Thunberg said (I believe, once): yelling at adults, who I hope some of them listened.

Maris: Yes.

Sarah: If even one of them does, that would be something. Because this kind of dual idea – maybe to start with – that children often do have a capacity to be able to see the simplicity, and often fairly simple reality of what's happening morally, in a way that adults find ways not to; but also that we shouldn't force them to be our conscience to maybe such an extent.

Maris: The way that Samantha Smith became briefly an international superstar really speaks to this desire to have one little girl be able to save it all.

Sarah: Yeah.

Maris: Yeah, I think at the time when I was four or whatever, I would've been like, yeah, that's great, but come on you guys. 

Sarah: Yeah. And then, okay, so what's the President doing, you may be wondering. I'll tell you; I'm always thrilled to.

So, my source here – I’ll read you some quotes from this – is from a book called The Triumph of Nancy Reagan by Karen Tumulty. It is a weird fact about my life that I have read so many books about the Reagans, multiple times, to try and learn this stuff by heart.

Why do I care so much about the Reagans? It's hard to say. My therapist could tell you. I feel like their dysfunction is modern America's dysfunction, and also, my dysfunction and maybe your dysfunction. And one of the things I find fascinating about Ronald Reagan is that I think he was a chronic people pleaser who had an alcoholic father, and who was obviously – I'm not going to say he was a great guy.

He was very racist even when he was running for governor of California; people were like, Ronnie, you have got to put those lawn jockeys away. It's a bit racist even for us in here in the early seventies, or sixties.

He was obviously very interested in protecting his money and helping other hideous white men protect their money.

Maris: Yes.

Sarah: But I do think that he also had the heart of a codependent in a way that just speaks to me, you know. 

Maris: Yes.

Sarah: So Karen Tumulti writes, “In the opening months of his first term, Ronnie…” – she calls him Ronnie in her book, which I feel is from Nancy's perspective, but it’s also a lot of Ronnies, I’ll tell you.

“Ronnie also made a more personal overture. It came in the spring of 1981, shortly after the assassination attempt. Perhaps facing his own mortality instilled an urgency in the new president, a sense that he had no time to wait for an opening. As he began his recuperation, Ronnie composed a letter to Leonid Brezhnev, his counterpart in Moscow.”

And when she says shortly, what she means is like two weeks after he was shot by the subject of our last episode, John Hinkley. He has a conference about this letter that he's writing to (at the time) leader of the Soviet Union, Brezhnev, and he has the conference in his pajamas and robe. This is really the first thing he's doing.

Maris: I love that.

Sarah: “The US President asked, is it possible that we have let ideology, political and economic philosophy, and governmental policies keep us from considering the very real everyday problems of the people we represent? The peoples of the world, despite differences in racial or ethnic origin, have very much in common. They want the dignity of having some control over their individual destiny. They want to work at the craft or trade of their own choosing and be fairly rewarded.”

Yeah they do, Reagan; they want a raise and to unionize.

“They want to raise their families in peace without harming anyone or suffering harm themselves. Government exists for their convenience, not the other way around. Mr. President. Mr. President, should we not be concerned with eliminating the obstacles which prevent our people from achieving these simple goals? And isn't it possible some of those obstacles are born of government aims and goals, which have little to do with the real needs and wants of our people?”

Maris: That's some great politicians speak.

Sarah: Yeah. What do you think of Dear Ronnie's little letter there? 

Maris: It reminds me of Bill Clinton in the nineties.

Like yeah, all of these things would be great, but let's see you help enact them in any meaningful way.

Sarah: Right, yeah. He knew how to make a speech, by gum. And my belief is that if Reagan had stayed a sports radio guy in Iowa, America might look very different.

Maris: Yeah.

Sarah: But it could also look worse. Who the heck knows? Not that that's a defense of Reagan, just that it could be worse. I don't know how, but it could be.

Maris: Let’s not contemplate that.

Sarah: Yeah. But so, the thing is that he reads this letter and his advisors are like ah, no, that's insane. You can't send that to the Soviet Union. You need to have our boys at the State Department write something for you to send because they've been doing it for 20 years; they'll do a great job. And they write something that seems to Reagan very bureaucratic. I'm sure it is. And he’s like: no, I want to bear my heart to the Soviets.

And he does that. He sends his original letter.

Maris: Okay.

Sarah: The Kremlin responds; they're like, “nyet,” basically. It’s like when you send a text with a lot of emojis in it and somebody responds in a way where they're like no, we're not texting friends on that level. And you're like, okay.

And the other problem we might recall is that then the leaders of the Soviet Union keep dying on Reagan.

Maris: Yes, they do: rapid pace. In researching Samantha, I didn't realize how short Andropov’s term was. Term: is that the word?

Sarah: Sure. Yeah.

Maris: He was not in office for a year.

Sarah: Yeah. He had died within less than a year of this correspondence.

Maris: Oh, sorry, Brezhnev, you mean? Yes.

Sarah: Oh yeah. So Brezhnev is the leader of the Soviet Union for 19 months. He dies and is succeeded by Andropov, who dies after 15 months, which is in February of 1984, less than a year after Samantha's letter.

Then we have Chernenko, who dies within 13 months. And then finally we get Gorbachev, who Rose Nylund writes to. And one of the things that does seem to weirdly be true about how all this unfolded is that Reagan, just through not having a mind that operated on a bigger scale than this was like, I just want to sit down with the leader of the Soviet Union. And then Gorbachev was like, yes, I am a friendly guy, 

Maris: As you can tell.

Before we move on too much, the one thing I do remember about the eighties more than anything is going to Temple, and every week there would be a new bar mitzvah. And just about every week there would be an adopted Russian Jewish child who could not be bar mitzvahed in their home country and were not allowed to leave. And so therefore, whoever was doing their Haftorah would be doing it in the honor of this other sad Soviet Jew as well. 

Sarah: Wow. Speaking of creating a feeling of connection between children in other countries, what effect did that have on you?

Maris: Yeah, it definitely – in my little child's mind, it's like why aren't they allowed to go? They want to be here having a bar mitzvah and getting little shots of Manischewitz served to you in a little cup. And if that's what they want to do with their religious freedom, then what's the holdup?

Sarah: What was your sense of the Soviet Union at that time, or, getting through the eighties? 

Maris: Very much the way that my temple in the eighties would talk about the Middle East, same kind of thing. Kind of subhuman, run by absolute lunatics who had it in for us and hated freedom and hated America.

And one of the things – from the TV footage I watched – it seemed like there was no color there, that everybody was dressed in browns and muted tones. And Samantha’s trip highlighted that there is nature, there is greenery

Sarah: Yeah, right. They're like the things that are cropped outside of the image that you're shown. The same way that in the early two thousands, if a spy show had a scene set in the Middle East, they would open with a guy singing in a way they deemed to be Middle Eastern sounding.

Maris: Yes.

Sarah: And a camel and a mirage ripple effect. And it was like, yep, it's not like they have KFCs there or anything.

Maris: Exactly.

Sarah: Yeah, which is the marker of – I think – true cultural connection. 

Maris: Yeah. Speaking of that, of course, pop culturally in the eighties, the villain was always a Soviet spy.

Sarah: Right. And then you've got, oh my gosh, the big blonde scary guy in one of the Rocky sequels who punches Apollo Creed's head off.

Maris: Dolph Lundgren.

Sarah: Yeah. And this idea – this came up in the skating narratives of the time too, where we always had the spunky American facing off against someone representing the Soviet Bloc – of the spunky All-American versus the specter of pure iron will and discipline skating for the Soviet Union.

And they always won, by the way, you know.

Maris: Yeah.

Sarah: It was very tough to compete. And of course what you learn later, and we probably knew at the time, is that the very young people often who were competing for the Soviet Union were doing so, and an attitude of a lot of fear and anxiety because of how they would be treated if they didn't show when they represented not just their nation, but the whole concept of communism.

Because really, the Cold War was a decades long dick fight about which way of living is best. And I don't know, it's really more about execution than anything else.

Maris: Yeah, absolutely. It's not ideology.

Sarah: None of us are doing a perfect job, I'll tell you that much. The nice thing about America historically, and certainly in the late 20th century, is that we have had less secret police, less detainment of random people for no stated reason, less secrecy and spying, we hope. But we seem to be trying to compete now, and you can see how it is useful to have some sense of what your country's ideals are, even if you don't see them being held to all the time.

Speaking of growing into cynicism, how do you feel about that path and what you need to see in the world to get through your daily life?

Maris: Yeah, so Sarah, I should say, my book isn't all about cynicism. 

Sarah: No, it's about so many other things. 

Maris: It's one of the ways that I sold this book.

Sarah: It's about Barney's, for example. 

Maris: Yes indeed. It's You're Wrong About, but for my life, for every assumption that I was wrong about.

Sarah: We are wrong about Maris.

Maris: Yeah, and I think that while my trust in American institutions as a whole is almost gone, and that has certainly led to some cynicism, it's also just changed my ambitions for what I want to see succeed in their place. And I think, especially going back to the insulin question, it was when I realized that politicians can tweet about it all they want from both sides over and over again many times, but until someone actually does something about it, we diabetics have to send insulin to our fellow diabetics who are in need of it, because that's the only way that anything's ever really going to get done. 

Sarah: Yeah. And I think, to lose belief in institutions is not remotely the same thing as losing belief in the human.

Maris: Absolutely.

Sarah: Yeah. Worth remembering. And so tell me first of all again, the title and author of this book that you showed me, and then just tell me about what you learned and your thoughts about Samantha Smith, and what it feels like to learn about her, and then if you will, what happens next for her, because she does get a response to her letter and it leads into an interesting next chapter.

Maris: Truly. Yeah. This is America's Youngest Ambassador. It's written by Lena Nelson, who was a child growing up in Russia at the time that Samantha Smith is coming over. And just the absolute hero worship on their end, on the Soviet end, that Samantha's letter does first get printed in Pravda.

And that leads her to ask why she hasn't gotten a response.

Sarah: Which is a good question because if it's in the newspaper, then you know they've received it.

Maris: They've received it. Andropov writes back to Samantha and invites her to come to the USSR. He also says that she resembles Becky from Tom Sawyer.

Sarah: Yeah. I can't think of a single character trait Becky has to be honest. It's been a while. 

Maris: She's an American girl who's ten-ish, I think.

Sarah: Perfect.

Maris: Seems like that's her main thing. And of course he says yeah, I don't want to start a war, I want peace. Which you have got to say, but she goes; she and her parents go to Soviet Russia for two week.

Sarah: And it's paid for by the government, right?

Maris: The Soviet government.

Sarah: By the Soviet government, yeah.

Maris: They did get permission from the State Department. They wanted to at least clear it.

Sarah: Yeah. Because the thing is, at that point, what it feels important to stress maybe is that there is this aphorism that I'm fond of, which is only Nixon can go to China, right?

Maris: Yes.

Sarah: That Nixon is this conservative, not someone who's going to be suspected of being too much of a dove in the sort of (at that time) communist China and the United States negotiations. He's the one who's able to go and make that venture because everyone knows he's such a dick. It's not too scary to think of Nixon there.

Maybe not everyone would give that exact summary of what that means, but then you also have this class of diplomat or diplomatic figure at this time. And going back to skating, this also is similar to the situation with skating and gymnastics during this period and these sports that center on young women, or really young girls in the cases of Nadia Comăneci and Olga Korbut, for example, that you have this kind of young female, almost-diplomatic figure, whether she's simply representing what your country is supposed to be about, or in this case actually has access.

The thing that I can't stop thinking about at this point is that I think Samantha Smith had, despite the concerns, and I'm sure that these are extremely well-founded, that she was being given essentially the congressional tour of Jonestown…

Maris: Yes.

Sarah: Where you have a very curated view of “Oh yeah, look at that, everyone's happy and certainly eating enough. Go back and tell your country that.” But also that she went to a children's summer camp. She met other kids, she developed friendships and came back able to articulate seemingly in large part because of that trip, this belief in children needing to encounter and befriend each other across these diplomatic lines that had been drawn around them by adults, and if you look at the world now, that still is – I think there’s a lot of things that we need, but I do think that is one of them.

Maris: Absolutely. Samantha advocated after she got back from the Soviet Union; she advocated for a granddaughter exchange program, which is like the cutest, most eighties idealistic little girl thing to advocate for but there's some truth in it. If a Russian child, just somebody's granddaughter, maybe not a professional athlete, could just come to America, the Americans could see that child and realize that child is a child, like other children, but that we are a society made up of humans. All over the globe.

Sarah: Yeah.

Maris: Every single country you're going to go to. And I think that's a real simple lesson that still gets lost. 

Sarah: Do you ever think about the time, I don't know, like 10 years ago, Ben Affleck was on one of Bill Mar's stupid shows, and Bill Maher was trying to imply that all Islamic culture is somehow terrorism adjacent.

And Ben Affleck – I can't stress this enough – was like: that's bullshit, Bill Maher; most people just want to live and take care of their families and eat sandwiches basically. He definitely said the thing about sandwiches, and it couldn't be more true really, I think

Maris: Absolutely.

Sarah: And will never stop thinking. Yeah.

And can you actually read us some of that speech? Because, is it an international children's conference in Japan that she's invited to?

Maris: Yes.

Sarah: The thing is too, she's also funny. And you know who else was funny? Helen Keller; doesn't get enough credit for it – very funny person and funny kid.

But she starts to speak, and she's like: my apologies, my dad helped me write the speech, and he doesn't speak any Japanese.

Maris: Yeah

Sarah: Wherever you think is good, but I like the sort of thing about the computers in 2001. You know that idea? 

Maris: Oh gosh, yes. I love that. So this is from the Children's Symposium on the year 2001 held in Kobe, Japan in 1983.

“I have to begin with an apology. My father helped me with my speech and look, I discovered that he doesn't know a single word of Japanese. Luckily, I have learned some of your language since I got here, and I've been trying to learn as much as possible. So let me begin by saying, mi han.” I am not going try.

Sarah: I know. Let's actually, let's skip ahead. 

Maris: Yeah.

Sarah: Let’s see.

Maris: Oh, when I close my eyes and… 

Sarah: Yeah, I like that. I was just looking at that. Yeah, that's perfect. 

Maris: “When I close my eyes and think about the future, this is what I see. I see a computer.” Ooh, she was so right. “And stored in my computer is information on exactly how much food there is in the world. It tells where there are large crops. It tells where the wheat supply is good for that year, and also about the crops of corn and rice and potatoes, and it won't forget the beef and poultry and fish. This computer will also show where the people are who don't have enough food. By the year 2001, the computer can also tell us where the ships and airplanes are that can take the food from where it is directly to the people who need it.

In my computer of the year 2001, it also says where the wood for houses and the steel and concrete for building can be found. And it shows where the work are for the building, the new houses and roads and hospitals and schools and factories. And when I close my eyes, guess what? I know how to work that computer and match up all the things that will be needed for the people who will need them.

And soon we will know how to move one to the other regardless of what country they're in or what borders have to be crossed.”

I for sure thought by now we'd have that all figured out, Sarah.

Sarah: I know. And the thing is, I think of the time when it was like, boy, if only we had that information, we sure would use it for good.

And now it turns out – and we kind of knew this back then too, but now we really know – that a few people make a lot of money by creating artificial shortages of things that there are plenty of, including wheat.

Maris: Yeah.

Sarah: And, I don't know: I feel like I don't want to look at this kind of idealism that you can see in a child and say that it's incorrect because it isn't.

Maris: Sure.

Sarah: It does make the most sense. It is what people should do and the fact that we don't do it isn't proof that we can't do it. It's just that, I think maybe one of the things that this makes me think about is that we were – people in my generation, your generation, the sort of overlap in there – and maybe kids always get told that they are the ones who need to change the world on a global scale.

Maris: Sure.

Sarah: And there are ways that they can do that, and that children like Samantha Smith have done that and continue to do that because she has a legacy. She inspired a foundation that led to children having a grandchild exchange – not exactly a grandchild exchange, but something approaching what she envisioned.

And yet also that just the ongoing care and protection that we offer each other on a more everyday level is also just as important and often what sustains us more than these big moments; or that change happens through friendship much more than through policy in many ways.

Maris: 100%. And I think that right now, and in my book, it is really about the idea of community that when we see other people as our problem. I don't mean that in a bad way – just when we care about other people, the world becomes so much stronger. 

Sarah: I'm looking for a section of the speech I'd also like you to read. Let's see. Okay. Can we start with “What I wish for is something I'll call the International Granddaughter Exchange?”

Maris: Yes.

Sarah: Okay.

Maris: “What I wish for is something I'll call the International Granddaughter Exchange. I guess if I were a boy, I'd call it the International Grandson Exchange, but I'm not a boy, so I'll stick with granddaughter.

The International Granddaughter Exchange would have the highest political leaders and nations all over the world sending their granddaughters or nieces or, okay, grandsons and nephews, to live with families of opposite nations. Soviet leaders’ granddaughters would spend two weeks in America; American leaders’ granddaughters would spend two weeks in the Soviet Union, and wherever possible, granddaughters of other opposing countries would exchange visits, and we would have a better understanding all over the world.”

Sarah: The security implications are quite staggering. But the general gist, I love.

Maris: Oh, the Secret Service would be… yes. 

Sarah: Yeah. We can skip… I'm not going to make you try and read Japanese.

Maris: Thank you.

Sarah: We can skip to “last summer.” 

Maris: “Last summer, I had the amazing chance to visit the beautiful and awesome Soviet Union. I loved making friends with those girls and boys, and I think they enjoyed meeting an American kid. Let's keep doing it. Let's find a way to get some of those girls and boys to visit Japan and America and China and Peru. And let's find a way for you to visit Soviet kids and American kids. Kids who can't speak a word of Japanese, even kids who drive in American cars.”

Sarah: Ha ha ha ha.

Maris: “If we start with an international granddaughter exchange and keep expanding it and expanding it, then the year 2001 can be the year when all of us can look around and see only friends. No opposite nations. No enemies and no bombs.”

Sarah: And I was thinking recently too about the kind of optimism that I remember from the late nineties and this idea of the new millennium as something where we had reached a time where we had the technology to be united as a globe. 

Maris: Yes.

Sarah: That was a feeling that a lot of people had. And what I find interesting is that it might be the kind of conventional narrative to be like, yeah, and then 9/11 happened, and we realized we were all idiots for thinking that. Actually, we all arguably used it as an excuse to pretend that was a ridiculous thing to believe, and I don't think it was a ridiculous thing to believe. I think that it's difficult to try to bring about less war and less suffering and less humanitarian crises on a global scale, and global terrorism is one of the things that you have to learn how to deal with.

But using a terrorist act against your country as an excuse to believe in the annihilation of your enemies forever and ever after, that seems like it doesn't ultimately benefit anybody. It also occurred to me as we were talking before, there's this whole – it’s like shorthand in newspapers – the hawk and the dove: Do you want to attack other countries or do you want to let other countries attack you? And it's neither bitch, I'm a crow. I'm collecting shiny objects. I'm cunning but I don't start stuff. 

Maris: I love that. Yeah. And certainly after 9/11, I remember that if you weren't a hawk, you were unpatriotic.

Sarah: Yeah. And if you didn't agree ultimately to believe that we needed to go to war with Saddam Hussein for reasons that were technically unrelated to September 11th, but which everyone all but told us were revenge-based, even though they were not, they were profit based.

Maris: Yeah.

Sarah: And it was basically treasonous to point out that we were brainwashing people as best we could into participating in war for the enrichment of the 1%, especially the oil company-holding class, by using a sense of justifiable fear and trauma against people ultimately, in order to get them to act against their best interests. And really, the American foreign policy and domestic policy response to the threat of terrorism, such as it is, which has always been pretty minimal in this country, and we have a lot more to worry about clearly now from Christian nationalists.

Maris: Yes.

Sarah: And the kind of people who bomb abortion clinics. But the way that we respond to threats as a country is what ultimately defines us. And I think that, you know, comparing post 9/11 America to Cold War America is, I don't know – you can't. I'm not here to make any comparisons in terms of better or worse, but to speak of this being a time when our president. George W. Bush was talking about going to war against terror: just the feeling, just no more terror ever again.

Maris: Yes.

Sarah: I always found that funny. It's like we're all going to be scared for the rest of our lives. You can't stop that from happening. It's the kind of thing you say when you are never going to go into therapy.

Maris: And of course that's what, 15 years after the war on drugs. 

Sarah: Right. We have got to stop. And then, the war on poverty, which I think was declared over a little bit too fast. And as far as I can tell, we could have stuck that one out for longer. But yeah, we have got to stop waging war against these amorphous concepts.

But we also, of course, famously referred to terrorists as evil doers during the Bush administration, and as you mentioned before, Samantha Smith is in the news in the United States and the Soviet Union in April of 1983, and it is in March of 1983 that Reagan, feelings apparently still hurt from getting rebuffed by the Kremlin, calls the Soviet Union an evil empire.

Maris: Yes. 

Sarah: He's giving a speech where he talks about, “You know this isn't about two countries of equal merit who can't come to an agreement. This is a good country and an evil country.” And it's like, well, yeah, we don't need to say that everybody involved in every international dispute has like equal legs to stand on because that's generally not true. And there are American values worth protecting and defending, although not as many as we seem to think.

Maris: Yes.

Sarah: But also saying that everything about the country you are in opposition to and the way that its people live – not its leaders, it's people, who all this is really about…

Maris: Yes.

Sarah: That everyone there is evil, or that the way of life is so fundamentally evil that the people in that country can't possibly be understood by us.

The president at this point is doing less for foreign policy than a 10-year-old girl going on 11. It's just the truth.

Maris: Absolutely.

Sarah: And that’s, I guess, my big conclusion, which is that I had a childhood misunderstanding that Samantha Smith, a young girl like me, had done something instrumental in ending the Cold War.

And now looking back, I'm like: No, she did though, I think, because she was the person who, when the president was not doing it, despite the imperfection of any diplomatic mission, was able to show Americans images of normal Soviet citizens, normal adults and kids and people who, as you talk about this book explaining – say the author's name again.

Maris: The author is Lena Nelson, who is the person who set up that website that we're referring to. 

Sarah: Yeah. And she writes in this book about realizing there was no Samantha Smith website and no source for Samantha Smith documents, right, and she had as a child, started a scrapbook of Samantha Smith in the news.

And I wonder if Americans being able to see that people in the Soviet Union loved Samantha the way that we America loved her, that allowed us to see that maybe we might understand the people over there better than we thought that we might. 

Maris: Absolutely. And I'm sure we'll get to this, but Greta Thunberg doing this kind of work now hits so many of the same marks.

Sarah: And it makes me think that in another world, Samantha Smith might have ended up also getting arrested and illegally detained in international waters by the state of Israel. Yeah.

Maris: Yes.

Sarah: So why don't we watch, because I want to look at some footage and for people to hear some.

Samantha Smith comes back from her and her family's tour of the Soviet Union. It's huge news in the U.S. It's huge news there. I believe there have to be multiple kids making scrapbooks about her because this is how kids learn about the world. And then she comes back and is on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.

I also love, at the start of the story, she went on Nightline, and when I think Ted Koppel thanks her for coming on, he's like, thank you for coming on, and she's like, you're welcome. What I was struck by about this appearance she's here on the Tonight Show, it’s July, 1983, she's with Johnny Carson who's got just, sort of – I don’t know – a little bit of an intense energy in that late night talk show host kind of a way. And you realize that she's actually pretty nervous, and she takes a couple minutes to warm up and get used to it.

But then she's doing it. She's on the Tonight Show.

Maris: She's doing it. 

*recording*

Johnny Carson: Now they tell me the subways. Did you get a chance to see any of the subways at all?

Samantha Smith: Yes, absolutely beautiful.

Johnny Carson: Tell me about those. Tell me about it. They say they're gorgeous. 

Samantha Smith: They are really.

(Sarah: Tell me about the subway stations.)

Samantha Smith: On the ceilings, they're painted like little tiles, you know the rocks.

Johnny Carson: Like little murals or something? 

Samanth Smith: Yeah. And pictures painted of war or something showing the miseries or something like that.

Johnny Carson: Right.

Samantha Smith: And then other ones, other subway terminals are painted white and gold and it just, it looks just like a really expensive church or something.

Johnny Carson: That's what I hear. They say they're beautiful. Do they actually have chandeliers hanging in the subways? 

Samantha Smith: Yes, they do.

(Sarah: I love how he is like: Tell me what things look like. Nobody knows.)

Johnny Carson: Chandeliers.

Samantha Smith: Chandeliers.

Johnny Carson: Wonder how long those would last in New York. We have paintings in New York subways also. Number five aerosol can, I think does it? Okay. Yes. Now you took some presents, t-shirts and stuff and so forth. You got a lot of things too, didn't you?

Samantha Smith: Yes.

Johnny Carson: What did you get? 

Samantha Smith: A lot of – I’m jealous of some of the kids because they're, they sew so well. I got lots of stuffed animals that were sewn by them by hand.

Johnny Carson: Right.

Samantha Smith: And they look like they were just bought in a store. They're really good. 

Johnny Carson: Beautiful, yeah. So you got some stuffed animals. 

Samantha Smoith: And then I got books about Russia.

Johnny Carson: Right.

Samantha Smith: And mostly books and stuffed animals.

Johnny Carson: Yeah.

Samantha Smith: And oh, I did get a Russian beauty costume. 

Johnny Carson: Russian beauty costume. 

Samanth Smith: Mmm-hmm, yes.

Johnny Carson: That's nice.

Samantha Smith: You might, somebody might have seen it on tv. It's got sort of like a crown and then a dress.

Johnny Carson: Yes. They're very lovely costumes. Have they got any girls as pretty in Russia as you are? 

Samantha Smith: I think most of them are prettier. 

Johnny Carson: Really? Oh, they must be knockouts then. Somebody told me you went to – was it a summer camp or a version of a summer camp – for a few days?

Samantha Smith: Yes. Artek. And I was really surprised. Usually, I'm really shy to meet new kids. But I was so surprised as soon as I touched the ground from getting down the stairs, off the plane, they grabbed me and pulled me onto the bus. 

Johnny Carson: Yeah. So kids are pretty much the same everywhere you think, huh? 

Samanth Smith: Yeah. 

Johnny Carson: Unfortunately you didn't get to meet Yuri Andropov, did you?

Samantha Smith: No. 

Johnny Carson: What did they tell you was going on? Why didn't you get a chance to meet him? 

Samantha Smith: They just said that he was too busy. 

Johnny Carson: Just.. 

Smanatha Smith: Too busy.

Johnny Carson: Yeah. I guess world leaders get pretty busy sometimes. 

Sarah: What does it feel like to watch her on the Tonight Show? 

Maris: You can feel her nerves, right?

Sarah: Yeah.

Maris: I feel like a stage mom, sort of, hoping that she's going be able to pull through.

Sarah: Yeah.

Maris: And then when she does get off a zinger or smiles in a way that's incredibly endearing, it's so lovely. Especially when Johnny Carson isn't being creepy to her. 

Sarah: I know. And then there's a feeling of oh my God, she’s in the world of creeps now that’s called showbiz.

Maris: What’s happening. Truly.

Sarah: Yeah, but what's so strange about it and amazing is that… I think Drew Barrymore went on the Tonight Show when she was a little kid. You would have children on occasionally on shows like this, and I'm sure there still are on late night shows where they would be treated as a side show attraction, you know.

Maris: Yes.

Sarah: They would be treated affectionately, but as if they were a dog that was doing somersaults or something. And in this case, there is that attitude. And then it will switch to a genuine question about do they have chandeliers in the subway stations? We have literally no other way of knowing, did you see this with your own eyeballs?

And she's like, yeah, I did. And it's like, well, let's add that to the very short list of things we know about the Soviet Union. That she is an actual diplomat in this situation. No matter how self-serving you imagine the goals of the adults who brought her to this level of prominence might be – and if we're talking about politics and media, then you know, the sky's the limit.

Maris: Yeah.

Sarah: Still, she has real power and is using it, again I think, a lot better than the president.

Maris: Amen to that.

Sarah: And the story has a really sad ending, which is that there's a producer who's looking for a child actress to play a role in his new show, which is going to be called Lime Street. It's about an insurance investigator who gets up to all kinds of actiony adventures. He has two daughters. One is Maia Brewton from Adventures in Babysitting. And this guy's brother sees Samantha on the Tonight Show and is like, you should look into casting that girl, she's great. 

And so she does end up cast on the show. They film it in London. And then on a break from filming a couple years later, this is the summer of 1985, she and her father are headed home, and they're on a small commercial plane that crashes short of the runway and kills everyone on board. And she didn't live to see even the beginning of the end of the Cold War in the United States.

And I wonder, Maris, if that's something that you remember that.

Maris: That I don't remember quite as much. But how devastating.

Sarah: Yeah.

Maris: And she did at least get a hero's sendoff. And Ronald Reagan then finally did write to her mother. Better late than never. 

Sarah: He was too intimidated by how much better she was at diplomacy, I tend to imagine. 

Maris: Absolutely. She writes a letter, Jane Smith, Samantha's mom.

Sarah: Yeah.

Maris: Writes a letter back to him, and she says, “In your telegram you mentioned that people will remember and cherish Samantha's idealism. Too often that term is equated with naivete. But in Samantha's case, her father and I felt that her dream of a peaceful relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union was based on the most practical of all considerations.”

It's like, good, you got the last word in, Jane. 

Sarah: Yeah, and I think that should be our last word too. And again, going back to her original letter, one of the things I love about it is that it is written just with this true sense of urgency, which is the only really reasonable response to the situation, which is like, what are you planning to do? You need to tell me what your plans are because I need to know, and I have a right to know as a child who would like to grow up in this world. 

And I just want maybe people to, as we leave this story, to think about how we often will try and dismiss idealism or a belief that things could be better or a belief in what we are able to do for each other as people, many people have tried to teach us that kind of belief is stupid, or wrong, or simply too naive, and it's not. Believing that your oppressors will reward you is the only naive thing.

Tell me what you're going take from this story. 

Maris: I think that part of my book is about learning to feel okay with the fact that I was intensely idealistic as a child and was constantly told that I was naive, and then grew up and realized that yes, I was naive in many ways. But now more than ever, connection with other human beings is the thing that makes me feel most hopeful about the world. And having that hope – it's like climate change activists say: without having some hope, what are we even striving for?

Sarah: Yeah. And I also just think children live in a world clearly where adults do a lot of terrible things in their name all the time. And I think that just for today, let's balance that out by listening to them and if we're in that position, and you're very lucky if you are, to nurture that hope within them or to listen to the hopes of the child that you once were and still are. And encourage your kid to write letters.

Maris: Oh, I love that.

Sarah: It matters what you think, and it matters what children think, not just the things that we want to use them as an excuse to do, but what they actually think and believe and know about their lives, and what they recognize about the world that we have become too desensitized to put into words, they can.

So let's pay attention to what they're actually saying and not just use them as a reason to pass another terrible law.

Maris, thank you for just joining me in this journey and thank you for – I just love getting to learn about anything with you, but especially learning about Samantha Smith, talking about Lena Nelson's book, talking about this kind of community that I think that she wanted to build in her lifetime that goes on. It means a lot to me and especially getting to do it with you. 

Maris: Me too, Sarah. You know, I’m a long-time fan, so it's really an honor to be here. 

Sarah: I'm such a fan of yours. And one last thing, in the words of Columbo: Maris, you have a book out; what's the name of your book? Where can people find you? Where can they get more of your wonderful flavor? 

Maris: Yeah, my book is called I Want to Burn This Place Down, and it's available wherever books are sold. If you have the means, not doing it from Amazon would be wonderful. I also have a newsletter called The Maris Review, because I like puns, and that's where I keep track of all the books I read and my thoughts about the publishing industry and media.

And that's just themarisreview.com.

Sarah: And you also had a longstanding podcast called the Maris Review.

Maris: Yes.

Sarah: Author interview podcast. And that is just my favorite title of any podcast. I don't think I've told you that, but it's just like We're Done Here. There isn't a better one out there. It's over.

And you know that we have this resource that you have created. I feel like listening to an interview with an author about their work is like having – when it's great and on your show – it is like having your brain cleaned with an ostrich feather, in the best way. 

Maris: 100%

Sarah: That might sound bad; it’s good.

Maris: You’ll like ostrich feathers. Yeah, they’re good.

Sarah: Yeah. It's just there's a degree of specificity in talking about language and the things we can do with it that when you get to hear two writers talk to each other, it just feels amazing.

Thank you for everything that you make. Thank you for joining me today. Thank you for just finding the joy as you do in your book, and as you have here with me today, and just continuing to live here in this world and get to know each other. 

Maris: Thank you so much, Sarah. This is great. 

Sarah: Thank you so much. Let's go have a lovely snack. What are you going to have when we get off this call?

Maris: Ooh, probably a couple of string cheeses. That is not a lovely snack.

Sarah: I just had cheese before this call. String cheese is pretty lovely, really; it's food and entertainment at once. What else can you say that about?

Maris: What are you going to have?

Sarah: I'm going to have a big bowl of ramen. Yesterday, today and tomorrow.

And that was our episode. Thank you for listening. Thank you for being here. Thank you to Maris Kreitzman, both for being on this show with us and for writing her wonderful new book I Want to Burn This Place Down. Thank you to Miranda Zickler for editing and producing. Learn more@mariskreitzman.com.

Subscribe to Maris's newsletter there, The Maris Review. It is as delightful as she is. And also, again, check out samanthasmith.info. There is so much lovingly archived information there. And thank you again to Lena Nelson for her book America's Youngest Ambassador. And thank you most of all for listening. We'll see you next time.