The Foreign Service Journal, November 2018

24 NOVEMBER 2018 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL The Ins and Outs of a Diplomatic Courier Hub F or several decades until the early 1990s, all State Department diplomatic couriers operated out of just three hubs: Washington, D.C., Frankfurt and Bangkok. As a result, trips to posts lasted days, often weeks, and the cost of travel and temporary duty assignments could run high. As travel options and technology improved over the years, so has the efficiency of courier operations. In the 1990s, the U.S. Diplomatic Courier Service set up hubs in five new locations, add- ing two more in the 2000s. The most recent hub was established in Nairobi this past summer, bringing the total to 11. These vary in size and resources, with Wash- ington and Frankfurt having the largest staffs. Additional hubs are more cost-effective and greatly reduce the amount of time diplomatic couriers spend traveling. In a far cry from the first-class seats of decades gone by, today’s diplomatic couriers frequently fly in jump seats on cargo planes with “pouches” that can fill the entire cargo hold. Increasingly, though, you’ll find couriers on cargo ships, ferries, trains and trucks— whatever is most efficient. The job isn’t all globetrotting, though. Diplomatic couriers are exceptional logisticians, tracking millions of pounds of cargo annually. In 2017, the Diplomatic Courier Service moved 103,167 pouches weighing 5,548,257 pounds. While the D.C. division is the origin for about 70 percent of all classified material the U.S. moves around the world, more than two-thirds of all material transits the Frankfurt Regional Diplomatic Courier Division. Tales from the Vault The shipping process usually begins in the “vault,” a secure storage facility where classified and sensitive materials are kept before and after delivery. Couriers first log detailed records of every diplomatic item and pouch they ship and receive: the to and from addresses; the date the item was pouched and the date the item was received or released; the registra- tion number, seal number and pouch number; and the item’s dimensions and weight. Only then do they “tag and bag” the shipments and schedule them for movement. Getting the shipments to their destination is a feat requiring an expert level of familiarity with weight restrictions and flight schedules for commercial and cargo airlines, as well as an encyclopedic under- standing of entry require- ments—from vaccinations to visas—for every country. On shipment day, the diplomatic courier will check his or her inventory to verify once more that all the pouches are there and accurate. The pouches are then counted and loaded into an embassy vehicle in which at least one courier, a courier escort (who is sometimes another courier) and a driver head to the airport. Only when the diplomatic pouches have been loaded securely onto the plane does the traveling courier board. The escort watches until the cargo doors are closed, then waits until the aircraft departs and the shipment is securely underway to head back to the office to finalize the paperwork. Meanwhile, as the aircraft begins to approach its destination, an escort there meets it to ensure the diplomatic cargo remains under Department of State control. It’s a carefully orchestrated process that is repeated day and night at airports and other transit points around the globe—wherever members of the Diplomatic Courier Service are on duty, ensuring the secure handling of our nation’s most sensitive diplo- matic shipments. —Angela French, DS Public Affairs The shipping process usually begins in the “vault,” a secure storage facility where classified and sensitive materials are kept before and after delivery.