‘Mail came in diplomatic bag’

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33610, 12 August 1974, Page 2

‘Mail came in diplomatic bag’

(N.Z. Press Association) WELLINGTON, August 11. Mail recently alleged to have been tampered with came from Britain, not South Africa, and arrived in New Zealand in a diplomatic bag, the Prime Minister (Mr Kirk) has been told. Mr Kirk received this information in an interim report on mail addressed to Mrs J. G. Fenton, of Point Chevalier, Auckland. The letter and envelope from the British Leader of the Conservative Party (Mr Heath) was enclosed in another envelope addressed to Mrs Fenton but bearing a Parliament Buildings Post Office date-stamp and other stamps including one reading “insufficiently addressed,

opened by supervisor internal affairs.” The interim report so far cannot identify that stamp or its user. There is no such official title as “supervisor internal affairs” in the Internal Affairs Department. Checks are continuing and it is not known yet if the outer envelope and contents came by way of diplomatic bag or either the British or the New Zealand High Commission. But once the letter arrived in Wellington it was referred to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and it is thought at this stage the Ministry put the already addressed letter into the mail through the Parliament Buildings Post Office. That would explain the Parliament Buildings postmark.