Threat to Queen Elizabeth during 1983 US trip detailed in FBI documents
WASHINGTON (AP) — The FBI revealed a potential threat to Queen Elizabeth II during her 1983 trip to the United States.
The documents were released this week on the FBI’s archives website. Queen Elizabeth the second died last September after 70 years of rule.
The Queen’s West Coast visit with her husband, Prince Philip, included a stopover in San Francisco in March 1983. The FBI said a San Francisco police officer, who frequented a bar popular with Irish Republican Army sympathizers, in February received a call in 1983 from a man claiming his daughter had been killed by a rubber bullet in Northern Ireland.
According to the documents, the man said he would “attempt to harm Queen Elizabeth” by either dropping an object from the Golden Gate Bridge onto the Queen’s royal yacht or attempting to kill her during a visit to Yosemite National Park. The documents said the intelligence agency planned to close the bridge’s walkways as soon as the yacht approached.
The names of the officer and the caller have been redacted from the documents, which don’t say whether precautions were taken in Yosemite or if arrests occurred. A March 7, 1983 memo said the Queen had completed the US visit “without incident” and “no further investigation required”.
The documents detailed other security concerns related to the Queen’s visits to various US cities. In May 1991, while attending a Baltimore Orioles game with President George HW Bush, several dozen protesters in the park chanted slogans condemning British policy in Northern Ireland.
