The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has released new documents that show Queen Elizabeth was targeted for assassination during her 1983 visit to the United States. The documents describe what appears to be information given to federal investigators about a threat to the monarch's life in California 40 years ago, as per media reports.
According to BBC, they claim that a police officer who frequented an Irish pub in San Francisco informed FBI agents about a call from a man he met there. The man claimed to be seeking vengeance for his daughter, who was "killed in Northern Ireland by a rubber bullet," according to police.
According to the documents, "he was going to attempt to harm Queen Elizabeth and would do so either by dropping something off the Golden Gate Bridge onto the Royal Yacht Britannia when it sails underneath or by attempting to kill Queen Elizabeth when she visited Yosemite National Park." It is to be noted that the threat was issued on February 4, 1983, roughly a month before Queen Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh's visit.
In response to the threat, the Secret Service planned to "close the walkways on the Golden Gate Bridge as the yacht approaches," according to the documents. However, what steps were taken in Yosemite are unknown. The FBI provided no information about the arrests.
According to The Guardian, another FBI document made public online regarding the Queen's 1991 state visit to the United States reveals concerns that Irish groups were planning to protest the monarch's appearance at a baseball game and a White House event.
"The article stated that anti-British feelings are running high as a result of well-publicised injustices inflicted on the Birmingham Six by the corrupt English judicial system, as well as the recent rash of brutal murders of unarmed Irish nationalists in the six counties by loyalist death squads," the file said.
"Although there were no threats against the president or the queen in the article, the statements could be interpreted as inflammatory." According to the article, "an Irish group had reserved a large block of grandstand tickets".
Lord Mountbatten, the Queen's second cousin, was killed in an IRA bombing in County Sligo, Ireland, in 1979.