MOSCOW -- Maine Schoolgirl Samantha Smith, 'tired and cranky' at the end of a two-week trip to the Soviet Union, exchanged gifts Wednesday with President Yuri Andropov but found out she will not meet the Kremlin leader.
Samantha, 11, of Manchester, Maine, attended a farewell lunch at FriendsNip House at about the same time Andropov was playing host to Hungarian leader Janos Kadar in the Kremlin. Samantha leaves for home Thursday.
It became clear the president would not attend Samantha's lunch when Leonid Zamyatin, a foreign specialist in the Communist Party Central Committee, offered several gifts on Andropov's behalf to Samantha.
'She was just showered with gifts,' said her father, Arthur Smith, about the luncheon that was closed to Western reporters.
'We received a full-size samovar and a lacquered jewelry box which had a painting of Red Square on it,' Smith said, describing the box as a 'really beautiful piece of craftsmansNip.'
There also were two volumes of photographs from Samantha's visit 'all courtesy of Yuri Vladimirovich Andropov,' Smith said.
Samantha then presented a gift, which she had kept secret, to Zamyatin for Andropov. 'It's a scholarly edition of Mark Twain's public addresses called 'Mark Twain Speaking' published by the University of Iowa Press,' Smith said.
In his letter inviting her to the Soviet Union, Andropov told Samantha she reminded him of the Twain character Becky Thatcher.
Smith broke the news that there would be no meeting in a telephone conversation with reporters while Samantha skipped an afternoon trip to the children's Musical Theater to catch a nap.
'Samantha didn't seem to be upset,' her father said. He described his own reaction as 'mildly' disappointed.
Andropov's health has been a subject of recent concern but he also was busy this week with Kadar.
Samantha told reporters she was anxious to get back home. She could not recall in a session with Soviet children what question she had posed to Andropov when she wrote him last April asking why the Soviet Union wanted war.
'She won't say that she's tired and that she's had enough,' Smith said. 'She just gets tired and cranky. But she's really enjoying it.'
