ANIMAL MAGIC: Chi-Chi sits on a raft at London Zoo

Today she stares glassy-eyed out of a Perspex case in the Natural History Museum’s café. Chi-Chi the giant panda is now stuffed and lifeless and barely given a second glance by the visitors as they munch sandwiches en route to the dinosaurs. But it was a different story more than half a century ago when the bundle of black and white fur was delivered to London Zoo on September 26, 1958. She was the only giant panda in the West and was a lively, playful cub at that. As soon as she padded out of her travelling box and began to romp around her enclosure Chi-Chi became the scene-stealing star of the zoo, attracting headlines and visitors in their thousands. Her fame only escalated when an effort to mate her in Moscow eight years later saw her thrust into the centre of delicate Cold War negotiations and turned into a bona fide political animal.

The Russians thought it was a front for some spy operation and Morris was followed around by the KGB Zoologist Desmond Morris

Chi-Chi will go down in history as Britain’s most famous panda and her story seems particularly pertinent today when one of the world’s most celebrated species is again threatened with extinction according to environmental charity WWF, whose logo was inspired by her. She came to London Zoo by accident. Having been caught in the wild as a baby in Sichuan and housed in Peking Zoo she was destined for the US. But by 1958 Washington had ceased all trade with Maoist China and so Chi-Chi was refused entry as “communist goods”. At first The Zoological Society of London wasn’t interested either as it refused to ­encourage the collection of wild pandas but when it was pointed out Chi-Chi had already been collected her purchase was approved.

Henry Nicholls, a writer who presented a Radio 4 programme on the panda, says: “London Zoo paid £12,000 for Chi-Chi which is probably not a lot for what they got out of her but I don’t think many other zoo animals had commanded that kind of money before.” She was actually not the first panda to land at London Zoo in the 20th century. That accolade went to Ming, who arrived in 1938 and who featured in propaganda to boost morale during the war. But Ming died in 1944 and when Chi-Chi came along the public’s appetite for a furry animal with black patched eyes was huge. She became a sensation. She only had to roll over or slop her water bowl and everyone was in raptures.

She was indulged and even fed chocolates by visitors. “The zoo gave her a bit of bamboo but they mainly fed her porridge and fruit, which she loved,” says Nicholls. “By 21st century standards that’s strange but pandas can get all their nutrients from porridge. In the wild they get through their body weight of bamboo in a day.” Zoologist Desmond Morris was curator of mammals at London Zoo and when Chi Chi was an adult he was determined she should breed. But relations with communist China were non-existent so he turned to the only other giant panda outside China: An-An.

“Unfortunately,” Morris later explained, “he happened to be housed in Moscow Zoo at a time when the East-West Cold War was at its most frigid.” Nevertheless he flew to Moscow and began negotiations while the suggestion of an arranged marriage between the only two pandas outside the Orient caused great excitement in Britain. “There was massive global interest. It was just extraordinary,” says Nicholls. “The Russians thought it was a front for some spy operation and Morris was followed around by the KGB. Before an agreement could be reached it went to the highest levels of British government because it was such an overt statement of political co-operation at the height of the Cold War.”

According to Morris the Russians even attempted underhand tactics. “They tried unsuccessfully to trick me into stealing the plans of a secret factory so they could throw me into the famous Lubianka jail,” he recalled. “But I managed to avoid making mistakes and the following year was able to take Chi-Chi to Moscow to mate her with An-An.” His account of the unsuccessful meeting of the pandas is hilarious. “Chi-Chi was on heat and An-An was clearly infatuated by his new partner,” he described.