LONDON: A recently released cache of FBI files revealed a potential plot to assassinate Queen Elizabeth II during her visit to California in 1983.
The possible threat followed a phone call made by “a man who claimed his daughter had been killed in Northern Ireland by a rubber bullet”, according to the document which also refers to a bar frequented by supporters of the Irish Republican Army (IRA).
The Queen and her husband Prince Philip visited the West Coast of the United States in February and March 1983, and the trip was uneventful.
Four years earlier, in 1979, IRA paramilitaries opposed to British rule in Northern Ireland killed Louis Montbattenlast colonial governor of India and uncle of Philip, during a bomb attack.
The filing says the man claimed he would attempt to harm the Queen “either by dropping an object from the Golden Gate Bridge onto the Royal Yacht Britannia as it sails below”.
Otherwise, he would “attempt to kill Queen Elizabeth during her visit to Yosemite National Park”, they added.
A separate file among the documents, dated 1989, pointed out that while the FBI was not aware of any specific threats against the Queen, “the possibility of threats against the British monarchy is always present from the Republican army Irish”.
The queen, who died last September at the age of 96, has already been the target of other assassination plots.
In 1970 suspected IRA sympathizers tried unsuccessfully to derail her train west of Sydney, while in 1981 the IRA tried to bomb her during a visit to Shetland, off off the northeast coast of Scotland.
In the same year, a mentally ill teenager fired a single shot at the Queen’s car while visiting New Zealand.
Another teenager shot him six blanks during the Trooping the Color parade in central London.
The possible threat followed a phone call made by “a man who claimed his daughter had been killed in Northern Ireland by a rubber bullet”, according to the document which also refers to a bar frequented by supporters of the Irish Republican Army (IRA).
The Queen and her husband Prince Philip visited the West Coast of the United States in February and March 1983, and the trip was uneventful.
Four years earlier, in 1979, IRA paramilitaries opposed to British rule in Northern Ireland killed Louis Montbattenlast colonial governor of India and uncle of Philip, during a bomb attack.
The filing says the man claimed he would attempt to harm the Queen “either by dropping an object from the Golden Gate Bridge onto the Royal Yacht Britannia as it sails below”.
Otherwise, he would “attempt to kill Queen Elizabeth during her visit to Yosemite National Park”, they added.
A separate file among the documents, dated 1989, pointed out that while the FBI was not aware of any specific threats against the Queen, “the possibility of threats against the British monarchy is always present from the Republican army Irish”.
The queen, who died last September at the age of 96, has already been the target of other assassination plots.
In 1970 suspected IRA sympathizers tried unsuccessfully to derail her train west of Sydney, while in 1981 the IRA tried to bomb her during a visit to Shetland, off off the northeast coast of Scotland.
In the same year, a mentally ill teenager fired a single shot at the Queen’s car while visiting New Zealand.
Another teenager shot him six blanks during the Trooping the Color parade in central London.
