Documents released by the FBI on several visits made by Elizabeth II to the United States in the 1980s and 1990s revealed threats and a potential plot to assassinate the iconic monarch, who died last September at the age of 96.
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Among these documents, which have been published by the US Federal Police, is a reference to a trip made by the Queen of Great Britain and her husband Prince Philip to California in 1983.
According to information obtained by the San Francisco police from a source close to Irish nationalist circles, a man who claimed that “his daughter was killed by a bullet in Northern Ireland” came “to attack Queen Elizabeth”.
He planned to do this by “shooting a thing from the golden bridge at the British royal yacht passing under it, or the queen on her way to Yosemite National Park,” he said.
Four years earlier, in 1979, an armed group of the IRA (Irish Republican Army) killed Louis Mountbatten, Elizabeth II’s cousin and her husband’s uncle, by planting a bomb on their boat. It was the height of the Northern Irish conflict, which, with the participation of the British army for 30 years, united Catholic Republicans and Protestant Unionists.
Another note, which refers to the monarch’s state visit in 1991, refers to threats by Irish groups to disrupt events he had to attend, such as a baseball game and a reception at the White House.
A 1989 document states that although there were no specific threats against the Queen, “the possibility of threats against the British IRA monarchy is always present”.
Elizabeth II, who died last September in Scotland at the age of 96, was the target of other assassination attempts.
In 1970, suspected IRA sympathizers attempted to hijack a train west of Sydney, Australia, and in 1981, the IRA planned a bombing en route to northern Scotland.
That same year, a mentally challenged teenager fired a bullet into the Queen’s car during a visit to New Zealand. Also in 1981, another teenager fired six bullets at him during a military parade to celebrate the King’s birthday in central London.
