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.