Samantha
Smith’s cause not forgotten
By
Peter Jackson
AP Writer
MANCHESTER – Even
now, almost a year after the fatal plane crash, Samantha Smith is
everywhere in her mother’s white house.
Oversized political
cartoons recalling the young peacemakers celebrated trip to the
Soviet Union three years ago this month share wall space near the
kitchen with a memorial that the Maine Legislature dedicated to “ a
beaming, sensitive child . . . who would not accept man’s inhumanity
to man.”
Magazine covers – a
Life foldout, featuring Samantha among dozens of other newsmakers,
the November 1983 cover from Soviet Life showing her all dressed up
in a traditional Russian folk costume – are displayed in a study.
Upstairs,
Samantha’s room remains that of a young teen-ager. A deflated
Snoopy balloon hangs over the bed. A poster of the pop star Prince
hides behind the door. A photograph of Samantha, taken several
years before she captured the world’s attention, is propped up on a
dresser.
Jane Smith says
that the bedroom trappings make her feel “a little weird.” She has
left them intact so the script writer for a planned TV movie about
Samantha can learn about his subject when he visits in late August.
“After the
writer comes though, I am dismantling it. I refuse to be one of
these old ladies who keeps a museum room,” – she said in a recent
interview in which she reflected on the
tragedy and
described efforts by the Samantha Smith Foundation to promote
regular exchanges of US and Soviet youngsters.
In a matter of days
it will have been a year since Jane Smith last saw her family alive.
Samantha and her father, Arthur, had been away in England for a
couple of weeks and were headed home when their commuter plane
crashed and exploded wily trying to land in Auburn on the night of
August 25, 1985.
Killed instantly
were the 13-year old Samantha who had been filming a segment of the
short-lived TV series “Lime Street”, Arthur Smith and the other six
people aboard.