The Brezhnev Era

Question 1: Discuss the boycott of the 1984 Summer Olympics.

Answer 1: The 1984 Summer Olympic Games, which were hosted by the United States and took place in Los Angeles, California, were boycotted by the Soviet Union and 13 other nations worldwide. All of the Soviet-led Eastern Bloc nations except Romania participated in the boycott, and other notable nations included Cuba, Vietnam, North Korea, and Afghanistan. It followed a similar boycott of the 1980 Olympics in Moscow, although 64 nations participated in that as opposed to the 14 of 1984. As explained by the Soviet Union, the boycott was due to accusations of “anti-Soviet hysteria” in the United States. It was also seen as Soviet payback for America’s boycott four years earlier. Ronald Reagan theorized that the boycott was intended to prevent Soviet athletes from defecting. In order to provide a venue for their athletes barred from the Olympics, the boycotting nations held their own sporting event, the Friendship Games, that same year.

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Question 2: Discuss the death of Leonid Brezhnev.

Answer 2: Leonid Brezhnev remained active in politics until his death of a heart attack on November 10, 1982 at the age of 75. Consistent with the cult of personality he had built for himself in his later years, his passing was commemorated with abundant excess. A nation-wide, four-day period of mourning was announced, during which his body was extravagantly placed in an open coffin on a stage atop a marble staircase beneath gauze-draped chandeliers accompanied by rows of mourners, a full symphony orchestra, and a massive assortment of flowers. For his funeral, all school classes were cancelled, and all roads into Moscow were closed. Every television channel covered the event. He was eulogized by speakers from atop the Lenin Mausoleum. His coffin was carried, still open, by the Soviet Union’s most important officials. Foghorns, sirens, factory whistles, and even guns went off as he was lowered into his grave.

Question 3: Discuss Samantha Smith.

Answer 3: Samantha Smith was an American girl who, in November 1982 at the age of 10, wrote a letter to the recently-instated Soviet General Secretary Yuri Andropov, expressing her fear of a nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union. The letter was published in Pravda, the leading Soviet newspaper, and Smith received a personal reply and an invitation to visit the Soviet Union from Andropov himself. Smith accepted the invitation and visited the Soviet Union for two weeks in July 1983. The visit, a significant gesture of goodwill between the two world superpowers, caused a worldwide media whirlwind, and was covered by all the major networks in both the United States and Soviet Union. Smith was interviewed by both Ted Koppel and Johnny Carson. She spoke very positively of the visit and the experience, wrote a book of her trip, and became a media personality.On August 25, 1985, barely two years after her visit to the Soviet Union, Smith was killed in the crash of Bar Harbor Airlines Flight 1808. She was 13 years old.

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