FBI files have shown a possible threat to assassinate Queen Elizabeth II during visits to the US. The newly released files revealed that an Irish Republican Army (IRA) threat was made to a police officer in San Francisco just a month before the late Queen and Prince Philip visited. The 102-page document details said the man was seeking revenge for his daughter who “had been killed in Northern Ireland by a rubber bullet”.
The confidential files released following a Freedom of Information Act by US media outlets said: “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 document detailed how the FBI ensured Her Majesty’s safety during the trips following the threats.
The Secret Service planned to “close the walkways on the Golden Gate Bridge as the yacht nears”.
The threats were taken seriously following the death of the Queen’s second cousin Lord ‘Dickie’ Mountbatten who was killed in an IRA bombing in Ireland in 1979.
The document also revealed that a summons was issued during the Queen’s visit to New York City in 1976 after a pilot flew a small plane over Battery Park with a sign reading ‘England, Get out of Ireland’.
Officers were asked to “remain alert for any threats against Queen Elizabeth II on the part of IRA members” when the Queen visited Kentucky in 1989 after the FBI said, “the possibility of threats against the British Monarchy is ever-present from the Irish Republican Army.”
In 1991 during a visit to see a baseball game in Baltimore with President George H Bush, the FBI warned the Secret Service that “Irish groups” were planning protests at the stadium.
It said an “Irish group had reserved a large block of grandstand tickets” to the game.
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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 grandstand tickets.”
The FBI told US media that there may be “additional records” in existence but did not indicate if they would be published.
