Smith's letter and Andropov's reply set off a storm of publicity as well as private responses to Smith.
Ralph Dunagin's cartoon in the Orlando Sentinel show the level of Smith's fame: a little boy, pointing at the television, says, "Hey, there's the guy who got the letter from Samantha Smith!" He was referring to Yuri Andropov.
The publicity increased in news outlets around the world when Samantha and her parents, Jane and Arthur Smith, traveled to the Soviet Union in July 1983.
