Before high speed, secure communication technology existed in the form of computers/phones, how could a government confidently engage with someone claiming to represent a foreign nation’s government? I just imagine you’d risk someone with the ability to forge documents and put on a good performance being able to declare war on behalf of an unsuspecting country.
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You did occasionally have people fake credentials for assorted reasons. One of the most audacious cases was when a Scottish man, Robert Fortune travelled to China in 1848 at the behest of the East Indian Company, in order to acquire the secrets of tea processing. Mr. Fortune pretended to be a Chinese government official, and convinced the people running the tea processing plant to let him tour the place and see how things were done.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-great-british-tea-heist-9866709/
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