Plot to kill the Queen in 1983 by a man seeking revenge for the murder of his daughter in Northern Ireland

The FBI has released a trove of classified documents relating to visits to the US by Queen Elizabeth II, revealing a possible assassination plot by Irish nationalist sympathizers.

The documents, which show how authorities repeatedly prepared for threats from Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) supporters, were released as a result of freedom of information requests filed after the Queen’s death in September last year. .

The possible assassination threat was revealed the night before the late Queen’s arrival in San Francisco in 1983, when a police officer warned federal agents of a possible attack.

It involved attempting to throw “an object” off the Golden Gate Bridge while the royal yacht Britannia was sailing below it.

It comes as part of a large release of more than 100 pages of documents relating to the late monarch following the Freedom of Information Acts sent to the FBI following her death in September of last year.

What have the FBI documents revealed?

• An assassination plot against Queen Elizabeth II was foiled the night before she arrived in the United States in 1983;
• The FBI warned that it would be “very difficult” to avoid events that would “embarrass” the Queen during the trip;
• There were also warnings of an attack by IRA sympathizers during a visit in 1981;
• The FBI assessed the IRA threat to the British royal family as “ever present”.

The possible assassination threat was revealed the night before the late Queen’s arrival in San Francisco in 1983.

Queen Elizabeth II’s yacht Britannia sails under the Golden Gate Bridge during her voyage to California in 1983

The police officer who tipped off authorities was drinking regularly in an Irish pub and told officers about an IRA sympathizer who was determined to avenge his daughter’s death.

It was after a phone call he received in February from a man he knew through the pub, “claiming his daughter had been killed in Northern Ireland by a rubber bullet.”

This phone call came about a month before then-President Ronald Reagan and First Lady Nancy Reagan hosted the Queen and Prince Philip, 57, in California.

Official documents indicate that the man told the officer that he planned to “attempt to harm” the late queen by throwing “an object” from the Golden Gate Bridge or trying to kill her during a visit to Yosemite National Park.

The memo on the assassination attempt reads: “This man also claimed that he would attempt to harm Queen Elizabeth by throwing an object from the Golden Gate Bridge onto the royal yacht Britannia as it sails below, or would attempt to kill the Queen.” Isabel when she visited Yosemite National Park.

The documents add that the man in question had previously been involved in police investigations. He described him as “generally cooperative, although he makes no secret of his sympathies for the IRA”. [sic].

The documents also reveal that FBI agents warned ahead of the visit: “It will be very difficult to anticipate and prevent incidents that could embarrass the Queen or the President.”

Although possibly the most substantial threat, it was not the first time the FBI had warned of possible attacks against Her Majesty.

Two years earlier, the FBI warned of a “potential attack” against Elizabeth II when she visited American cities with strong ties to Ireland, including Boston and New York.

Another 1989 document stated: “The possibility of threats against the British Monarchy is ever present from the Irish Republican Army.”

He continued: “Boston and New York are requested to remain alert to any threats against Queen Elizabeth II by members of the IRA and immediately provide the same to Louisville.”

The police officer who tipped off authorities was drinking regularly in an Irish pub and told officers about an IRA sympathizer who was determined to avenge his daughter’s death.

Queen Elizabeth II (right) and Prince Philip (second left) pictured in Yosemite National Park in 1983, the second location mentioned by supporters as a possible murder site.

Queen Elizabeth II visits the Hewlett Packard factory on March 3, 1983 in California

Queen Elizabeth II during a visit to the San Diego Institute of Oceanography in 1983

The Queen arrives in Santa Barbara in California in 1983

The documents also reveal that FBI agents warned before the 1983 visit: “It will be very difficult to anticipate and prevent incidents that could embarrass the Queen or the President.”

The 1983 plot was far from the only assassination plot the Queen survived (second left, pictured in California in 1983).

The would-be assassin had planned to drop ‘an object’ from the Golden Gate Bridge as Queen Elizabeth’s ship sailed beneath it.

And in 1976, police called a pilot in New York to stop him from flying a banner reading “England, Get Out of Ireland” while Elizabeth II was in town.

The frequent concerns of the US authorities and the royal family themselves were far from unfounded: in 1979, Elizabeth II’s second cousin, Lord Mountbatten, was killed in an IRA bombing.

He and three others died after their fishing boat was filled with explosives that were later detonated.

The other victims were Mountbatten’s grandson Nicholas Knatchbull, crew member Paul Maxwell, and Nicholas’s paternal grandmother Doreen, the widow Lady Brabourne.

There were also previous assassination attempts on the Queen which made the IRA threat even more potent.

In 1981, a New Zealand teenager pointed and fired a gun at Her Majesty as she was getting out of a car.

Christopher John Lewis fired a rifle, which misfired, during the Queen’s tour of the country. But he soon became obsessed with the idea of ​​taking down the royal family.

Two years later, he tried to overpower the guards at a mental hospital where he was being held to try to kill Prince Charles, who was in New Zealand with Princess Diana and Prince William.

Lord Louis Mountbatten was assassinated in an IRA plot that killed him and three others in 1979.

Lord Mountbatten was killed after explosives were detonated on his boat (pictured, file image)

In the same year, an anti-royal extremist shot the Queen six times during the Trooping of the Colour.

She again emerged unharmed from the attempt, carried out by 17-year-old Marcus Sarjeant.

He was later sentenced to five years in prison for terrorism offences, but only served three, during which time he wrote to Elizabeth II and apologized for his actions.

And in 1970 a plot was uncovered in Australia after the train she and Prince Philip were traveling on collided with a log on the track.

Fortunately, the conductor noticed the record and slowed down enough for the train not to derail, but former Detective Superintendent Cliff McHardy said in 2009 that his investigation had concluded that the record had been planted deliberately.

Had the conductor not seen the log, the train could have derailed, sending the royal couple into a deep embankment below.