“That really helped them back down when it came to the Cuban Missile Crisis a year later,” says Hagar. “Kennedy and Khrushchev had this back-channel communication going on and exchanged several gifts during that time period. “It’s more than just a gift, I think of Pushinka as being significant historically,” Hager says. “I like to think of it as a Cold War romance,” says Hager.īut the gift of Pushinka, he believes, had greater diplomatic importance and even helped prevent World War Three. The canine couple ended up having puppies. Although the President was allergic to dogs, Pushinka spent time with the children and became friendly – very friendly – with another White House dog, Charlie.
“A few weeks later one of the puppies showed up at the White House with a little Russian passport.”Īfter being screened for surveillance bugs by the FBI, the dog – Pushinka – took up residence with the First Family. “He mentioned that Strelka had had puppies, and she said you must send one of those puppies to me,” says Andrew Hager, historian in residence at the Presidential Pet Museum. During dinner, however, Jackie Kennedy started talking to the Soviet leader about the space dogs. By all accounts it was a difficult meeting. In June 1961, two months after Yuri Gagarin became the first man to orbit the Earth, President John F Kennedy and Soviet Premier Khrushchev held their first joint summit in Vienna. Then the story takes on a whole new dimension. “Their fame spread internationally – there were stamps, postcards, they were absolutely everywhere,” says Southgate. “It certainly compounded the impact on the United States – as it was so heavy, it confirmed the Soviets had the ability to put a nuclear warhead on a rocket and deliver it to the US.” “You could argue that it had as big an effect as the first Sputnik,” says Millard. And, by launching a sizeable 113kg (249lb) capsule with a live animal on board, it appeared the Russians were way ahead of the Americans when it came to space and missile technology. Still, for the Soviet Union, the mission was another propaganda coup and space dog Laika became a national hero.
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But in the scramble to get the spacecraft ready in time, no-one had figured out how to get the animal back alive. Following the success of Sputnik 1 on 4 October, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev had ordered a dog be flown within a month. The engineers who sealed Laika into a narrow, windowless Sputnik 2 space capsule on 3 November 1957 knew it was the last time they would ever see her.
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