Samantha Smith: The Girl Who Went to the Soviet Union

Pretty smart kid. I think the russians didn't appreciate her very well. They were looking for a tool, but I feel if she had survived she would have cut them very badly.

I felt at the time she was being badly used. There is something seriously wrong with you if you see Andropov as avuncular.
 
I think Samantha mentioned in an interview that the only propaganda she cared about making was "propagana for peace".

She's still an icon in the former Soviet Union, almost 30 years after her visit and 26 years after her death.
 

Hnau

Banned
@d32123
Wow! Good link. Poor Samantha Smith... :( so many ways to die. Plane crash, homicide, nuclear war.
 
Hi

I'm thinking of doing a Samantha Smith lives TL. Would anyone be interested in reading it - or helping me write it?

I'd only recently heard of her, having been born in the same year she died. Since then I've wanted to do a TL based on her surviving and eventually becoming president in 2020, but haven't had the time to undertake the necessary research (was thinking of putting it off until early January, when I'll have less on my plate).

I can't imagine she'll have much affect on the cold war, which was about to start winding down anyway. Therefore I don't think she'd be an affective "tool" for the soviets, even if they continued to try and use her as one.

In my (very) rough outline I've drafted, she fades in to obscurity for a while about a year after her OTL death, allowing her to concentrate on her education/career. After that (around the time 9/11 happens), she re-emerges as an "adult", with more solid, realistic ideas on maintaining as peaceful a world as possible.
 
While I don't think she would have that much influence this TL could be different for one reason: make it a personal TL about a character who are in the center of things without having much influence over what happens. That could be an interesting experiment, a low level alt.hist.
 
i cant see her defecting to the soviets, but i could imagine her surviving the crash and speeding up the dissolution of the socivets and great russian-american realtions
 
Hey Marta! I always found Samantha Smith to be an interesting and inspiring figure......perhaps maybe she could have a political career later in life? :D

Skeleton TL:

May 1987: Samantha Smith joins the Communist Party, USA, Maine District, and becomes a local reporter for the People's Daily World, covering peace and disarmament issues. A Gorbachev True Believer, she is oblivious to he fact that he's destroying the Soviet Union.

April 1989: With the fall of Democratic Germany imminent, Samantha speaks out against the imminent danger to the socialist system. Due to her turnabout against Gorbachev, Gus Hall appoints her second in command and she moves to New York, becoming Editor-in-Chief of both the People's Daily World (the reduction in frequency to weekly is butterflied away - in fact the PDW becomes a true daily - 7 days a week rather than just Tuesday through Saturday) and Political Affairs magazine.

January 1992: With the restoration of capitalism in Russia, Samantha gets depressed and tries to kill herself, but fails. She is hspitalised and forced to take a break from Party work.

January 1996: Samantha is back at work within the CPUSA, one of Gus Hall's favourites, she is now second in command.

October 2000: Gus Hall dies at age 90. The National Committee of the Communist Party USA unanimously votes Samantha the new National Chairperson.

2004: Samantha Smith runs for President of the United States on the Communist ticket, beating Democratic ketchup baron John Kerry but losing to George W. Bush.

2008: Samantha Smith runs for President of the United States again.

20 January 2009: Samantha Smith is inaugurated as the first Communist President of the United States. Her first act as President is to have Sam Webb, Chairman of the Michigan District of the CPUSA, indicted on fraud charges stemming from his attempts to lead the Party astray from its duty to fight valiently for the restoration of the Soviet Union and the extirpation of capitalist Mafia thugs from Russian territory.
 
Eh, I REALLY doubt a communist president is possible like 50 MINIMUM from the end of cold war. The USA will need 2-3 gens to end the effects of the maccarthism(s) and cold war fears, if you ask me - to even just have a left leaning guy.
 
Eh, I REALLY doubt a communist president is possible like 50 MINIMUM from the end of cold war. The USA will need 2-3 gens to end the effects of the maccarthism(s) and cold war fears, if you ask me - to even just have a left leaning guy.

I would assume he is being tongue-in-cheek, since not many fifteen-year-olds are made editors-in-chief.
 
I don't believe that Smith would become POTUS unless she abandons communism. And I think that 2009 is too early for her. Maybe 2020's is more ralistic.
 
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