In the late 1950s, US relations with Communist China were virtually nonexistent. Trade had been tightly controlled since China's intervention in North Korea in 1950, and, to deny Beijing any advantage from commercial or financial transactions, the Secretary of the Treasury issued strict regulations prohibiting the import of goods that originated in or had passed through Communist China. There were rarely any exceptions, even for pandas.
In 1958, one frustrated animal importer tried a different tactic. He took his case to the Director of Central Intelligence (DCI), Allen Dulles.
Heini Demmer, an Austrian animal dealer, and Frederik Zeehandelaar, a noted animal importer in New Jersey, wanted Dulles's help in obtaining permission from the Treasury to bring into the US a giant panda.
Demmer had just bought "Chi Chi" (whose name meant naughty mischievous one) from the Beijing Zoo, and several zoos in the US were interested in giving her a home. The Bronx Zoo, wrote the New York Times, "was clinging to a hope that the State Department may concede that the admission [of Chi Chi] would not be a victory for international communism." Both Treasury and the State Department, then led by Allen's brother, John Foster Dulles, had rebuffed the "pleas for clemency."
Did the two businessmen think Allen Dulles would be able to sway his hardline brother? The record clearly shows that the two men reached out to the DCI for help and that, for whatever reason, he obliged.
Dulles put his aides to work on the panda problem, including his legislative counsel, a senior clandestine service officer who supported the DCI at the Operations Coordination Board, and the director's assistant, who seemed to have borne the bulk of the tasking. The director's assistant was soon nicknamed by his colleagues, " the Vice President of Pandas."
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