The FBI has disclosed a possible risk to Queen Elizabeth II throughout her 1983 journey to the USA. The paperwork had been launched this week on the FBI’s records website. Elizabeth died last September after a 70-year reign.
The queen’s West Coast go to together with her husband, Prince Philip, included a cease in San Francisco in March 1983. CBS San Francisco reported that one doc seems to element a tip gathered round a month earlier than that go to from San Francisco police relating to a cellphone name from “a person who claimed that his daughter had been killed in Northern Eire by a rubber bullet.”
4 years earlier in 1979, IRA paramilitaries against British rule in Northern Eire killed Louis Mountbatten, the final colonial governor of India and an uncle of Philip, in a bomb assault.
In keeping with the paperwork, the person stated he was going to “try and hurt Queen Elizabeth” by both dropping an object off the Golden Gate Bridge onto the queen’s royal yacht or attempting to kill her throughout a go to to Yosemite Nationwide Park. The paperwork stated the Secret Service supposed to shut the bridge’s walkways because the yacht drew close to.
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The names of the San Francisco police officer who obtained the cellphone name and the caller had been redacted within the paperwork, which didn’t point out whether or not precautions had been taken at Yosemite or whether or not any arrests had been made. A March 7, 1983, memo indicated the queen accomplished the U.S. go to “with out incident” and that “no additional investigation is warranted.”
A separate file among the many paperwork, dated 1989, identified that whereas the FBI was unaware of any particular threats towards the queen, “the potential of threats towards the British monarchy is ever current from the Irish Republican Military.”
In 1970, suspected IRA sympathizers unsuccessfully tried to derail Elizabeth’s prepare west of Sydney, whereas in 1981 the IRA tried to bomb her on a go to to Shetland, off the northeast coast of Scotland.
In the identical yr, a mentally disturbed teenager fired a single shot towards the queen’s automotive throughout a go to to New Zealand. Christopher Lewis fired the shot as she toured the South Island metropolis of Dunedin.
The botched try was lined up by police on the time and solely got here to gentle in 2018 when New Zealand’s Safety Intelligence Service spy company launched paperwork following a media request.
Additionally in 1981, one other teenager fired six blanks at Elizabeth throughout the monarch’s Trooping the Coloration birthday parade in central London.
The queen shortly calmed her startled horse and carried on whereas {the teenager} informed troopers who disarmed him he had “needed to be well-known.”
The next yr, in one of the crucial well-known safety breaches of her reign, Michael Fagan managed to get into the queen’s bed room and spent 10 minutes speaking to her earlier than she might elevate the alarm.
The unemployed decorator had a couple of drinks and scaled the partitions of Buckingham Palace, climbing up a drainpipe to enter the queen’s London residence.
He wandered into her bed room and reportedly sat on the top of the mattress for a chat with the perturbed monarch earlier than a palace staffer lured him away with the promise of a shot of whisky.
The FBI paperwork detailed different safety issues involving the queen’s visits to numerous U.S. cities. When she attended a Baltimore Orioles recreation with President George H.W. Bush in Might 1991, a number of dozen demonstrators within the park chanted slogans condemning Britain’s coverage in Northern Eire.
On September 8, 2022, after greater than 70 years on the British throne, Elizabeth died at Balmoral Fort, her official residence in Scotland. She was 96.
Agence France-Presse contributed to this report.
