According to files, a man planned to throw something from the Golden Gate Bridge onto the royal yacht Britannia in revenge for the death of his daughter in Northern Ireland.
Jane Barlow / POOL / AFP
O FBI released files revealing threats and a possible conspiracy to assassinate Queen Elizabeth the second between the 1980s and 1990s during the monarch’s various visits to the US. The monarch died in Balmoral in September 2022. The cause of death was old age, according to the National Archives of Scotland. Among the documents released on the US Federal Police website is a note relating to a 1983 trip by the British Queen and her husband, Prince Philip, to the state of California. According to the San Francisco According to a source close to Irish nationalist circles, a man who claimed “your daughter was murdered by a rubber bullet in Northern Ireland” announced plans to “assault Queen Elizabeth”. The filing says the man claimed he intended to “throw an object from the Golden Gate Bridge at the royal yacht ‘Britannia'” or attempt to “kill the Queen during her visit to Yosemite National Park.” . Like many years before, the IRA (Irish Republican Army) had already murdered Louis Mountbatten, Elizabeth II’s distant cousin and her husband’s uncle, in a bomb attack on his ship. It was the most tense period of the conflict in Northern Ireland, which lasted 30 years and involved Catholic Republicans and Protestant Unionists, with participation from the British Army.
Another document on a 1991 state visit by the monarch cited threats by Irish groups to disrupt events attended by Elizabeth II, such as a baseball game and a White House reception. A 1989 file said that while no threats against the Queen were registered, “the possibility of threats against the British monarchy by the IRA is ubiquitous”. Elizabeth II was the target of further assassination attempts. In 1970 suspected IRA sympathizers attempted to derail the monarch’s train west of Sydney, Australia, and in 1981 the Irish Republican Army planned a bomb attack while traveling through northern Scotland. In the same year, a mentally disturbed teenager shot the Queen’s car during a visit to New Zealand. Also in 1981, another teenager fired six shots while Elizabeth II was taking part in a military parade in central London.
*With information from AFP