Margaret Thatcher refused to let a panda travel with her on Concorde
London Zoo boss Lord Zuckerman asked the PM to take male panda Chi Chi to Washington as part of a publicity stunt
MARGARET Thatcher refused to travel with a panda on Concorde for a London Zoo publicity stunt, newly released government files reveal.
Lord Zuckerman, president of the London Zoological Society, made the bizarre request to Downing Street after Washington asked for its male panda, Chi Chi, to mate with their female.
But the PM knocked it back, saying the animals do not make “happy omens” for travelling politicians in January 1981, papers released by the National Archives in Kew show.
The Smithsonian Institution in Washington had asked the London Zoo for the loan of Chi Chi to mate with a female the Chinese had given to the US.
Lord Zuckerman seized on the request to generate publicity for the cash-strapped zoo and contacted Downing Street suggesting Mrs Thatcher might hand him over in January 1981.
Cabinet secretary Sir Robert Armstrong wrote: “Lord Zuckerman sees this as a signal demonstration of the special relationship and would be very happy to time the announcement of the loan or the delivery of the panda in any way that the prime minister thought would be most likely to benefit Anglo-American relations.
most read in politics
“He even suggested that the Prime Minister might like to take the panda in the back of her Concorde, when she goes to Washington next month.”
But Mrs Thatcher’s private secretary, Clive Whitmore, replied: “She has commented that she is not taking a panda with her - ‘Pandas and politicians are not happy omens!’”
She added in a handwritten aside: “Lord Z knows more about pandas than I do - I am sure he can arrange these things.”