First lady Pat Nixon was sitting beside Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai at a banquet in Beijing. It was the first night of the historic visit she and her husband, President Richard M. Nixon, were making to “Red” China, and a lot had already happened.
Earlier in the day, the president had met with Chinese leader Mao Zedong. And now she was sitting beside the second-most powerful man in China. As dinner began, she noticed at her place a small tin of Chinese cigarettes bearing the logo of two giant pandas.
“Aren’t they cute?” she said as she picked up the tin. “I love them.”
Zhou replied: “I’ll give you some.”
“Cigarettes?” she asked.
“No,” Zhou said. “Pandas.”
Thus began, on Feb. 21, 1972, what would become the 50-year love affair between Washington and the giant panda, according to news reports and an account by the Nixons’ daughter Julie Nixon Eisenhower.
Weeks later, on April 16, 1972 — before dawn and under tight security — two giant pandas arrived from China at Andrews Air Force Base in suburban Maryland and were quietly transported to the Smithsonian’s National Zoo in Northwest Washington.
Hsing-Hsing, a male, and Ling-Ling, a “nubile” female, according to the zoo director, Theodore Reed, were both 18 months old.
“You’re going to love these animals,” Reed said. On April 20, the pandas made their public debut. More than 20,000 people came to see them the first weekend.
Fifty years later, the zoo has been home to eight giant pandas, four of which were born there, and a panda mania that has spanned generations.
The zoo has also played a major part in giant panda conservation, the current zoo director, Brandie Smith, said Tuesday.
“Fifty years of a dedicated effort to conserve a single species is almost unheard of,” Smith said. “Everybody loves giant pandas. We’ve captured the world’s attention [to] save this species and bring it back from the brink of extinction.”
“Giant pandas have gone from being listed as endangered to being listed as threatened,” she said. “We are moving the needle in terms of making panda populations more sustainable.”
On Wednesday, the zoo announced that it is planning celebrations and events over the next few months to mark the anniversary of the pandas’ arrival.
On April 16 and 17, it will host the world premiere of “The Miracle Panda,” a Smithsonian Channel documentary on the zoo’s giant panda program, in the visitor center theater.
This screening is free and open to the public, the zoo said.
Today, the zoo has three giant pandas: Mei Xiang, a female adult; Tian Tian, a male adult; and Xiao Qi Ji, a male cub.