Was Koskov in TLD killed?
Number24
NorwayPosts: 22,330MI6 Agent
We all remember general Pushkin saying about Koskov: "Send him back to Moscow ..... in the diplomatic bag". Does that mean he was killed?
I'm convinced he was. I did a little bit of research om diplomatic bags. They are bags or pouches that has to be clearly marked and it's considered a extremely serious breach of international rules to open by other countries. It's only to be used for official letters and articles. How large are they? Not very. The Italian police actually opened one of Ecuador's diplomatic bags and found 40 kg of cocaine!
Obviously this is such a grave missuse of the bag it warrants the police opening it. But if whoever was responsible for the smugling would've put more in there if they could. The risk was the same anyway. If the bag was opened the result was the same regardless if there was 40 or 80 kg of cocaine, so they would've shoved as much drugs in there as possible to maximise profits. So in my opinion it gives is a rough idea of how much can be put into a diplomatic bag. Koskov must've weighed at least double 80 kilos.
Was Pushkin being litteral when he said that? Maybe, maybe not. But I'm convinced you don't say to a group of spetsnaz commandoes to send an official back in the a diplomatic bag if you want him to get home alive. What's your opinion? Do you agree or disagree?
Comments
I got the obvious idea of asking Google how large a diplomatic bag can be. The official limit is a maximum weight if 40 lbs or 24 times 62 inches. What about the Ecuadorian bag filled with drugs? I don't know, maybe the journalist mixed up pounds and kilos?
I could be wrong, but I seem to recall that the term Diplomatic Bag doesn't necessarily have to refer to a bag or sack but can be used to refer to large equipment that is shipped to an embassy such as computers, communications equipment, coding/de-coding equipment etc in whatever packaging is necessary, particularly crates. I believe that as long as it is properly sealed, bearing Diplomatic markings and accompanied by the correct paperwork it can be classed as Diplomatic and therefore can't be opened by another country. However, if the country is suspicious of its contents, it can refuse to allow the 'bag' to enter the country (at risk of creating a Diplomatic incident, of course). The Soviet Union once tried to pass off an entire truck as Diplomatic and drive it to Switzerland but the Swiss objected and sent it back. As for smuggling a body, that is not without precedence. Some years ago following a coup in Nigeria, a Nigerian politician who had fled to the UK was kidnapped, blindfolded, drugged and bound and put in a crate and taken to Stansted to be flown to Nigeria as a Diplomatic package. UK Customs became suspicious of the crate when they noticed a peculiar smell coming from it. Fortunately for the politician, the senders hadn't properly sealed and marked the crate as Diplomatic and Customs were able to open it, whereupon they found him and freed him. Based on that, I would say that it is theoretically possible to send a body - living or dead - in a Diplomatic Bag.
On further inspection it seems you're right. Even a shipping container can be a diplomatic bag if properly marked and sealed. So Koskov could have been sent home alive. Thanks for the info. I think Koskov was most likely killed regardless. He did technically defect and he certainly tampered with millions of state funds.
It's possible he was imprisoned for life (or until the fall of the Society Union?), but if you're sent home in the diplomatic bag your fate is very dark regardless.
I always thought the line referred to Koskov being sealed, stamped and signed for - a thing of personal/ political interest to the Soviet government. I didn't think Pushkin meant to sign, seal & deliver him ! I never even considered he would be killed. The Bond films were still a little frivolous post-Moore and I always suspected the idea was to bring Koskov back in a later film. I was most amazed he survived the head on collision with the transport plane, which ought to have killed him. Maybe he had nine lives, Koskov the Kat perhaps...
Thanks guys, I was wondering what the next Imaginary Conversation would be about.... Imaginary Conversations - Page 51 — ajb007
I think Pushkin was saying Koskov was finished. He was no longer a general, or a returning hero as Koskov hoped for at that moment. He was an arrested crimminal. I think he was most likely executed, but he may have ended in jail. Was he sent by the diplomatic bag? It's possible, but it was far more possible in 1937 than it was in 1987. But if Koskov was executed in Tunisia to avoid the transport to the Soviet Union and a trial there. Such a trial would've been secret, but still embarrasing to many powerful people there. So perhaps killing him in Tunisia would've been easier, but only if his dead body wasn't found and identified there. So the diplomatic bag isn't a likely solution, but a possible one. Especially in the Bond universe.
As Koskov's led away, Jerome Krabbe's comical style of performing an alarmed response to Pushkin's sardonic order signals that the moment is to be taken none too seriously. Whether Koskov's to be executed or not - and presumably he will be - his exit from the stage is like that of a pantomime villain or a baddy in melodrama, with no more significance, really.
The intended dramatic weight falls more on the showdown between Bond and Whitaker; Koskov's sign-off is like an amusing after-note. If Koskov had been less of a lightweight jackanapes, it might have been apt to have shown him killed in the collision with the transport plane - a Bondian end for a villain - but, as it is, the wily rascal's final comeuppance is more fitting: we finish in Dick Dastardly terrìtory!
As Muttley might have put it: "Snazza frazza rashin' fashin' Reorgi Roskov!"
I certainly hope he was killed - and if not, sent to the worst gulag in the most inhospitable corner of the country.
"I am not an entrant in the Shakespeare Stakes." - Ian Fleming
"Screw 'em." - Daniel Craig, The Best James Bond EverTM
Yes, that’s my response to it too. Also I don’t think Pushkin is being literal: it’s just the switcheroo in his line to reveal that Koskov won’t actually be treated as a friend. Pushkin is the ally in this film don’t forget: we can’t have our genial ally characters executing people. He lives.
I've always thought he lives too. Sent back and chucked in a Gulag and forgotten about.
My take was that Koskov was indeed killed off, since he was in hot water for misusing state funds as Puskin said earlier in the movie. Even in works of fiction, the Soviet Union and its Intelligence agency the KGB did not mess around when people stepped out of line with them.
For me, clearly executed - probably led out and shot there and then by Pushkin's squadron of guards who were only too pleased to oblige.
Who else would you send to the worst gulag, Loeffs? 😁
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Anyone you say, Nap. I defer to you in all things 😳
"I am not an entrant in the Shakespeare Stakes." - Ian Fleming
"Screw 'em." - Daniel Craig, The Best James Bond EverTM
I have a new angle on this question.
Last week in a flea market in Brighton I got hold of a book in VG condition called 'James Bond: The Official OO7 TM Fact File' by Richard Holliss (Hamlyn, 1989). A snap at £3.00 - considering that the RRP in 1989 was £3.99 - the book is like an 'annual' for younger readers, covering the Bond series with pictorial features, fun facts, quizzes, etc. All officially licensed. Understandably, given the book's vintage, Dalton's Bond is well represented in its pages.
On p. 60 there's a quiz on villains, where one of the questions is: 'Which of the following villains survived their encounters with OO7?Scaramanga, General Koskov, Mr Kydd, Jaws, Goldfinger, Brad Whitaker, Dr No, Red Grant, Kamal Khan'. Turn p. 61 upside down and you find that the right answers are: 'Jaws, General Koskov.'
So there you have it: an officially licensed publication asserts that Koskov survives!
A pedant might retort that the quiz question focusses on who survives encounters with OO7 specifically... rather than with General Pushkin! So there's still wriggle room, even there!
I loved that book as a kid 😁
Well, there was of course "The Dikko Affair": a joint Nigerian-Israeli attempt to kidnap Umaru Dikko, a former Nigerian civilian government minister living in the United Kingdom, in 1984, and secretly transport him back to Nigeria in a diplomatic bag. The kidnapping took place, but the transportation was unsuccessful.
More about it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dikko_affair
-Mr Arlington Beech