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Irish references in FBI file on suspected plot to kill British queen during 1983 US visit

Man claiming his daughter was killed in Northern Ireland by rubber bullet made threats about monarch during call

FBI archive files say a man claimed that he was going to try to harm Queen Elizabeth II during a US visit by dropping an object off the Golden Gate Bridge onto the royal yacht Britannia. Photograph: Dexter Hake/New York Times shipping vessel passes under the Golden Gate Bridge near San Francisco, on Sept. 19, 2022. Four whales have died near San Francisco this year after ships crashed into them, and scientists hope to drive that number to zero with new technology. (Dexter Hake/The New York Times)

Fri May 26 2023 - 07:02

An FBI file relating to a visit to the United States by the late Queen Elizabeth II has revealed a potential plot to assassinate her.

The document, available on the FBI’s online vault, outlines what appears to be intelligence provided to federal agents about a threat to the queen’s life in California 40 years ago.

She and her husband, the Duke of Edinburgh, made an official visit to the US west coast in February and March 1983.

The file states that a phone call was made by “a man who claimed that his daughter had been killed in Northern Ireland by a rubber bullet”.

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It adds: “This man additionally claimed that he was going to attempt to harm Queen Elizabeth and would do this either by dropping some object off the Golden Gate Bridge onto the royal yacht Britannia when it sails underneath, or would attempt to kill Queen Elizabeth when she visited Yosemite National Park.”

The file refers to a club which “has a popular reputation as a republican bar that is frequented by sympathisers with the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA)”.

Another document, among more than 100 pages published by the FBI online, this time relating to the queen’s state visit to the US in 1991, reveals concerns that Irish groups were planning to protest at the monarch’s attendance at a baseball game as well as a White House event. The information came from a Philadelphia newspaper, titled Irish Edition.

The file said: “The article stated anti-British feelings are running high as a result of well publicised injustices inflicted on the Birmingham Six by the corrupt English judicial system and the recent rash of brutal murders of unarmed Irish nationalists in the six counties by loyalist death squads.

“Though the article contained no threats against the president or the Queen, the statements could be viewed as being inflammatory. The article stated that an Irish group had reserved a large block of grand stand tickets.”

A separate file among the documents, dated 1989, pointed out that while the FBI was unaware of any specific threats against the Queen “the possibility of threats against the British monarchy is ever present from the Irish Republican Army (IRA)”. - PA

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