Pushinka () was a dog who was given by the Soviet Premier

Nikita Khrushchev Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (– 11 September 1971) was the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and chairman of the country's Council of Ministers from 1958 to 1964. During his rule, Khrushchev s ...

to the President of the United States,

John F. Kennedy John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), often referred to by his initials JFK and the nickname Jack, was an American politician who served as the 35th president of the United States from 1961 until his assassination ...

in 1961. Pushinka was the daughter of

Strelka Strelka may refer to: Places * Strelka (inhabited locality), several inhabited localities in Russia including: ** Strelka, Amur Oblast ** Strelka, Lesosibirsk, Krasnoyarsk Krai ** Strelka, Vologda Oblast ** Strelka, Voronezh Oblast * a small cape a ...

, who had travelled into space aboard

Korabl-Sputnik 2 Korabl-Sputnik 2 (russian: Корабль-Спутник 2, lit=Ship-Satellite 2), also known as Sputnik 5 in the West, was a Soviet Union, Soviet artificial satellite, and the third test flight of the Vostok spacecraft. It was the first space ...

. Pushinka arrived at the Kennedy

White House The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in 1800. ...

after

Jacqueline Kennedy Jacqueline Lee Kennedy Onassis ( ; July 28, 1929 – May 19, 1994) was an American socialite, writer, photographer, and book editor who served as first lady of the United States from 1961 to 1963, as the wife of President John F. Kennedy. A po ...

had spoken to Khrushchev about

at a state dinner in Vienna. Mrs. Kennedy asked about Strelka's puppies, and one was subsequently sent by Khrushchev to the White House. Pushinka was examined by the

Central Intelligence Agency The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...

at the

Walter Reed Army Medical Center The Walter Reed Army Medical Center (WRAMC)known as Walter Reed General Hospital (WRGH) until 1951was the U.S. Army's flagship medical center from 1909 to 2011. Located on in the District of Columbia, it served more than 150,000 active and ret ...

over fears that she may be concealing an implanted

listening device A covert listening device, more commonly known as a bug or a wire, is usually a combination of a miniature radio transmitter with a microphone. The use of bugs, called bugging, or wiretapping is a common technique in surveillance, espionage and ...

. Pushinka was

x-rayed An X-ray, or, much less commonly, X-radiation, is a penetrating form of high-energy electromagnetic radiation. Most X-rays have a wavelength ranging from 10 picometers to 10 nanometers, corresponding to frequencies in the range 30 ...

, screened with a magnetometer and inspected with a sonogram. She was found to be free of any subversive devices. The White House electrician and kennel manager, Traphes Bryant, trained Pushinka with peanuts to climb up a ladder to

Caroline Kennedy Caroline Bouvier Kennedy (born November 27, 1957) is an American author, attorney, and diplomat serving in the Biden administration as the United States Ambassador to Australia since 2022. She previously served in the Obama administration as the ...

's playhouse and slide down the other side. Pushinka became pregnant by one of the Kennedy's dogs, Charlie, and gave birth to four puppies that JFK referred to jokingly as ''pupniks''. The White House received 5,000 requests from members of the public asking if they could have one of Pushinka's puppies. Two of the puppies, Butterfly and Streaker, were given away to children in the Midwest. The other two puppies, White Tips and Blackie, stayed at the Kennedy home on Squaw Island but were eventually given away to family friends, with one puppy being given to

Patricia Kennedy Patricia Helen Kennedy Lawford (May 6, 1924 – September 17, 2006) was an American socialite, and the sixth of nine children of Rose and Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. She was a sister of President John F. Kennedy, Senator Robert F. Kennedy, and Senator ...

and her husband

Peter Lawford Peter Sydney Ernest Lawford ( Aylen; 7 September 1923 – 24 December 1984) was an English-American actor.Obituary ''Variety'', 26 December 1984. He was a member of the " Rat Pack" and the brother-in-law of US president John F. Kennedy and sen ...

. Pushinka's descendants were still living as of 2015. Pushinka subsequently became irascible, and "a little nippy" according to Caroline Kennedy, which she attributed to her upbringing in a scientific laboratory.

References

{{Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis 1961 in American politics Animals as diplomatic gifts Individual dogs in politics John F. Kennedy Soviet emigrants to the United States Soviet Union–United States relations Nikita Khrushchev United States presidential dogs

See also

References