Can one little girl change the world?

It certainly seemed possible in 1982 and 1983 when Samantha Smith of Manchester wrote a letter to the leader of the Soviet Union, Yuri Andropov, and he wrote back.

Smith, who was a fifth-grader at the time, asked Andropov if his country planned to launch a war against the United States and the world.

It might be difficult for today’s fifth-graders to understand the dread – the fear – of growing up during a period of the Cold War when an idea as crazy as mutually assured destruction was considered a safety mechanism against nuclear war. But such were the times in the early 1980s, when the war rhetoric between the United States and the Soviet Union was high.

Andropov, a former leader of the KGB and secretary general of the Communist Party, wrote back to Smith. In his eloquent reply, Andropov pledged that his country had no intention of starting a war and invited Smith and her parents to visit the country and meet its people.

A short letter from a young girl turned into an amazing opportunity for cross-cultural exchange. It put a beautiful, sweet face on the contentious relationship between world superpowers.

In the summer of 1983, Smith visited the Soviet Union and used the experience to become an activist for peace. Two years later, on Aug. 25, 1985, Smith was killed in a plane crash along with her father and six others en route to Auburn-Lewiston Airport.

It’s unlikely that Smith, who would be 32 years old, would recognize the world today. The possibility of global nuclear war that so worried her has been replaced by new threats and new enemies. Now, the United States must guard against non-state players, such as al-Qaida, who would be willing to trade their own lives and the lives of countless others for a successful nuclear strike. The madness of mutually assured destruction has been replaced by something even worse: The clear fact that some enemies cannot be deterred. They can only be denied means and opportunity.

Unlike the Soviet Union of almost 25 years ago, which maintained a large arsenal of nuclear weapons but lacked the will or intent to use them in a first strike, the enemies of the United States today would not pause if they had the chance to attack.

At the same time, membership in the nuclear club has expanded. The deterioration of the former Soviet Union’s security apparatus and the addition of nuclear-armed Pakistan and North Korea increase the potential sources for weapons of mass destruction.

Speaking in Tokyo on June 7, Sam Nunn, co-chairman of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, summed up the danger: “We are in a dangerous period of history, where the threats have changed quickly, and our responses are changing very slowly – far too slowly.

“Throughout much of history, great nations trusted other nations as little as possible. They believed they could guarantee their own security.

“But today, with the rise of global terrorism, with poorly secured nuclear weapons and materials around the globe, with our economies so tightly intertwined in trade, it is possible that a small group of terrorists could acquire nuclear weapons in one nation, launch a nuclear attack in another nation, and stagger the security and the economy of every nation.”

It will take cooperation among nations and a large financial commitment to non-proliferation projects to keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of terrorists.

As Samantha Smith showed with an eight-sentence letter, it’s possible to reach out and make a difference in the world. But the job can’t fall to a child this time; it’s up to the U.S. government to lead, both with diplomacy and its wallet.