cloudstrider, posts by tag: communism - LiveJournal

Here is another gem from the early 1980s. This should be made into a movie. I wonder who would star in it. Any ideas? . . .

Stanislav Petrov

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
 


Stanislav Petrov, 2004. Stanislav Petrov (Russian: Станислав Евграфович Петров) (born c. 1939) is a retired Russian Army colonel who, on September 26, 1983, averted a potential nuclear war by refusing to accept that the United States had launched missiles against the USSR, despite the indications given by his computerized early warning systems. The Soviet computer reports were later shown to have been in error, and Petrov is credited with preventing World War III and the devastation of much of the Earth by nuclear weapons. Because of military secrecy and international policy, Petrov's actions were kept secret until 1998.

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Hello fellow freaks. A while back Joe suggested that we have semi-regular "columns." So far, Dustin and Knight-dude have come through. I have come up with two ideas for columns that I'd like to do. Being a history dweeb, both ideas have to do with history. The first idea is "The History You Don't Get Taught in School." I definitely plan on writing columns of that nature in the future. But, today, I bring you the first installment of my second idea, "History from Our Lifetime." This is very similar to my first idea, but with a slight twist. While the "History You Don't Get Taught" columns will deal with important subjects that people really should know about, the second idea deals with subjects that, more often than not, are simply curiosities. Moreover, assuming that this community is infested with people born in the early 1980s, I will seek out interesting but forgotten tidbits of news that have occurred since we all were born. While I will actually write "History You Don't Get Taught" columns, the "Our Lifetime" ones will mostly just be copied from other sources (and cited), since all I would otherwise do is paraphrase the same information. So, credit me for the research, not for the entries themselves.

So, today I bring you the tale of Samantha Smith, as provided by Wikipedia.

Samantha Reed Smith (June 29, 1972-August 25, 1985) was an American schoolgirl from Manchester, Maine who was called America's Youngest Ambassador in the United States and the Goodwill Ambassador in the Soviet Union during her lifetime. She became famous in these two countries and well-known worldwide after writing a letter to the Soviet Communist Party Secretary General, Yuri Andropov, during the Cold War and receiving a reply from Andropov which included a personal invitation to visit the Soviet Union, which Smith accepted. Assisted by extensive mass media attention in both countries, she participated in peacemaking activities in some other countries after her visit to the Soviet Union, wrote a book and co-starred in a television series before her death in an airplane crash.



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As Dustin would say, "Discuss."