Most readers of The Diplomatic Pouch know what a diplomatic pouch is but it’s not something we think about every day. Interestingly, if you do a Google search on “The Diplomatic Pouch” this magazine comes up first. If you do a search on “the diplomatic bag,” the other kind comes up first. And if you do a search on “ the diplomatic pouch,” the magazine still comes up first. Aren’t algorithms wonderful? But, as always, when all the peeriblah is revealed, there’s more to the story than that. As Wikipedia says, “A diplomatic bag, also known as a diplomatic pouch, is a container with certain legal protections used for carrying official correspondence or other items between a diplomatic mission and its home government or other official organizations. The physical concept of a "diplomatic bag" is flexible and therefore can take many forms e.g., a cardboard box, briefcase, duffel bag, large suitcase, crate or even a shipping container. Additionally, a diplomatic bag usually has some form of lock and/or tamper-evident seal attached to it in order to deter interference by unauthorised persons. The most important point is that as long as it is externally marked to show its status, the "bag" has diplomatic immunity from search or seizure, as codified in article 27 of the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. It may only contain articles intended for official use. It need not be a bag; in fact, no size limit is specified by the convention. It is often escorted by a diplomatic courier, who is similarly immune from arrest and detention If you’ve ever flown out of Dulles or JFK airports on an American or foreign airline you may have seen a courier carrying his bag(s). Not all couriers are carrying diplomatic bags, however. As Wikipedia says, diplomatic bags are clearly marked and extremely sensitive materials are usually hand-cuffed to the courier. Wikipedia goes on to list some of the more interesting cases where diplomatic bags weren’t carrying what you might expect, “Some countries with corrupt governments have allegedly used diplomatic immunity to smuggle drugs, which was mentioned by English journalist Tony Thompson in his book Gangs: A Journey into the Heart of the British Underworld. During World War II, Winston Churchill reportedly received shipments of Cuban cigars by this means. In 1964, a Moroccan-born Israeli double agent named Mordechai Ben Masoud Louk (also known as Josef Dahan) was drugged, bound, and placed in a diplomatic bag at the Egyptian Embassy in Rome, but was rescued by the Italians. The crate that he had been placed in appeared to have been used for a similar purpose before, possibly for an Egyptian military official who had defected to Italy several years before but then disappeared without a trace before reappearing under Egyptian custody and facing trial. During the 1982 Falklands War, the Argentine government used a diplomatic bag to smuggle several Limpet mines to their embassy in Spain, to be used in the covert Operation Algeciras, in which Argentine agents were to blow up a British warship in the Royal Navy Dockyard at Gibraltar. The plot was uncovered and stopped by the Spanish Police before the explosives could be set. In the 1984 Dikko Affair, a former Nigerian government minister, was kidnapped and placed in a shipping crate, in an attempt to transport him from the United Kingdom back to Nigeria for trial. However, it was not marked as a diplomatic bag, which allowed British customs to open it. In 1984, the Sterling submachine gun used to shoot dead WPC Yvonne Fletcher from inside the Libyan Embassy in London was smuggled out of the UK in one of 21 diplomatic bags. In March 2000 Zimbabwe created an international incident when it opened a British diplomatic shipment. In May 2008, a replacement pump for the toilet on the International Space Station was sent in a diplomatic pouch from Russia to the United States in order to arrive before liftoff of the next shuttle mission. In 2012, a 16 kg shipment of cocaine was sent to the United Nations in New York in a bag masquerading as a diplomatic pouch. In January 2012, Italy detected 40 kilograms of cocaine smuggled in a diplomatic pouch from Ecuador, arresting five. Ecuador insisted it had inspected the shipment for drugs at the foreign ministry before it was sent to Milan. But the story doesn’t end there. It never does. Just this past August it was revealed that a diplomatic bag had been found in the French Alps after 46 years. The bag was on an Air India flight that crashed on Mount Blanc. The bag and other debris were found on the Bossons glacier (Do a Google search for more information and some pictures of the glacier and mountain), apparently uncovered as the glacier melted due to global warming. As for the accident, a Boeing 707 operating Air India Flight 101 crashed into Mont Blanc on Jan. 24, 1966, as it was en route from Mumbai to New York with several scheduled stops en route. The flight was headed from Beirut to Geneva, Switzerland, when the crash occurred. The death toll from the crash included all 106 passengers and 11 crew. Air India Plane Wreckage From 1966 Found In French Glacier, 08/31/12 07:45 AM ET This Aug. 21 2012 photo provided by the Office de Haute Montagne de Chamonix (OHM) on Friday Aug. 31, 2012 shows a diplomatic bag reading "Diplomatic mail, Ministry of External Affairs" belonging to the Indian Government, found on the slopes beneath Mont Blanc by French mountain guide Arnaud Christmann. (AP Photo/Arnaud Christmann/OHM) PARIS — As the Alpine glacier melted, a curious discovery emerged after decades beneath the ice: a plane wheel, a shoe – and an intact pouch of Indian diplomatic mail from 1966. It all appears to be part of the wreckage from an Air India plane crash that hikers and a rescue worker found this week on the slopes beneath Mont Blanc. News reports said, “Rescuer Arnaud Christmann said the hikers alerted the tourist office in Chamonix that they had seen something beneath a glacier that looked like a wheel. He went to investigate and found pieces of the plane and "a gift from the mountain," a bag containing Indian and English newspapers, including a copy of the first issue of an American Diplomacy journal named XENOGOGIC from 1966 and other documents, labeled "diplomatic mail; as well as a Mount Blanc pen in perfect working order. Who knows? Perhaps as the ice melts further we’ll learn more about the plane’s crash. Intriguingly, on board the plane was Dr. Homi J. Bhabha, known as “the father of Indian nuclear programme” or “India’s Oppenheimer.” What we do know is that Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, known as Dr. A. Q. Khan, whose named in Urdu means “Savior of Pakistan,” and colloquially regarded as the founder of HEU based Gas-centrigue uranium enrichment programme for Pakistan’s integrated atomic bomb project, and who is regarded as “a serious proliferation risk” by the US Government cancelled his flight from Islamabad to Beijing on China Southern Airways Flight 007, with an on-going flight to Pyongyang, North Korea scheduled for August 23, 2012. Not confirmed yet is a report that the CSA flight would have been carrying a courier with a diplomatic pouch from the Chinese embassy in Islamabad to Beijing. Perhaps Dr. Khan knew something we don’t. Larry Peery (peery@ix.netcom.com) If you wish to e-mail feedback on this article to the author, and clicking on the envelope above does not work for you, feel free to use the "Dear DP..." mail interface.