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                              FBI License Plate Codes

       Somewhere in the  vicinity  of  2500  Soviet  and  Eastern  European
       officials live in the United States  at  any  given  time.  The U.S.
       State Department estimates that 30% to 40% of them are spies.

       This comes to about 900 working spies in the diplomatic corps.

       It is a very difficult job to keep track of the comings  and  goings
       of these "diplomats",   so   the   government  has  developed  coded
       diplomatic license plates.

       The code applies ONLY to diplomatic  plates  which are conspicuously
       red, white and blue with the word DIPLOMAT printed at the top.

       All diplomatic licenses  have a D.  The other two  letters  indicate
       the nation. SX for example, indicates that the car carries diplomats
       from the Soviet Union.

       FBI counter-intelligence agents are given wallet-sized cards listing
       the codes for eighteen "problem" nations.

       These nations are identified by the following codes :

            Albania         CP                Libya         FM
            Bulgaria        OM                Nicaragua     QU
            China           CY                North Korea   GQ
            Cuba            DC                Poland        QW
            Czechoslavakia  PH                Romania       ND
            East Germany    TJ                South Africa  FY
            Hungary         KH                Soviet Union  SX
            Iran            DM                Syria         AQ
            Iraq            TS                Vietnam       LD

       The Washington Post  published  the  code  against the wishes of the
       State Department.  They feared RAMBO  types  might attack diplomatic
       vehicles of countries they did not like.
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