This Adorable Panda Was at the Center of a Cold War Conflict

If anything could bring the gap between nations and ideologies, even at a time of tension and war, it just might be an adorable baby panda. But, even for a panda, such a task is far from easy.
Just look at Chi Chi.
As LIFE explained in its Jun. 16, 1958, edition, which featured photos of 130-lb., 1.5-year-old Chi Chi, she had been acquired in Beijing (then still identified as Peking) by animal dealer Heini Demmer. From her cage in Frankfurt, Germany, she was then in the middle of what the magazine called "a small international trade crisis." Zoos across the U.S. put in bids to acquire the rare creature, but a "U.S. embargo forbids all trade with Red China, and the Treasury Department refused to make Chi Chi an exception." And on top of all of that, her keepers had run low on bamboo and had to try feeding her wheat and rice with sugar.
She ended up settling down halfway at the London Zoo, when the British bought her for $28,000. Because she'd been deemed "enemy goods" by the U.S., "British children can thank the Cold War that they are privileged to visit her," LIFE joked in 1964.

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