The secrets of a failed attack on Queen Elizabeth II in 1983 come to light in the United States

Just before a visit from Isabella II In San Francisco, California, in 1983, a city policeman frequenting an Irish bar alerted the FBI to a possible threat against the Queen from an Irish Republican Army (IRA) sympathizer, which ultimately went unnoticed. deed.

This is revealed by various FBI documents now declassified and to which NBC News has had access, which ensures that the IRA sympathizer tried to avenge the death of his daughter with the attack on the monarch, who died in September last year.

The policeman who reported the threat said that on February 4, 1983, a month before Ronald and Nancy Reagan received Elizabeth II and her husband, she received a call from a man she knew at the aforementioned bar “who claimed that her daughter was was killed in Northern Ireland by a rubber bullet,” Chain noted.

“This man also said he allegedly tried to harm Queen Elizabeth by throwing something from the Golden Gate Bridge at the royal yacht Britannia as it passed under it, or allegedly tried to kill Queen Elizabeth while visiting (national park) Yosemite,” the documents said.

This information is among the 102 pages of FBI documents on Elizabeth II which were made public in response to a request made by NBC News and other outlets to the federal agency following the Queen’s death on Sept. 8.

The documents were posted on The Vault, the FBI’s publicly accessible website, and include documents relating to the Queen’s various visits to the United States, dating back to 1976.

“Potential Danger”

While the documents indicate that the threat against Elizabeth II in San Francisco was no more than a warning from an angry person, they “clearly reflect a persistent source of potential danger to the Queen whenever she visits the United States: the IRA and his sympathizers”. “, specifies the American chain.

The IRA, formed in the early 20th century but becoming an armed wing of the Sinn Fein nationalist political movement in the 1960s, sought to drive British forces out of Northern Ireland and unify Ireland, often by violent means.

The documents show that FBI agents routinely shared information and preparations with the US Secret Service, local police agencies and other law enforcement agencies about the IRA and its sympathizers before and during the IRA Queen’s state visits .

IRA attacks

The FBI’s concerns about possible IRA violence against members of the royal family were not unfounded.

In 1979, Elizabeth’s second cousin, Lord “Dickie” Mountbatten, close to then-Prince Charles, was killed in an IRA bombing in Ireland, NBC recalls.

It was the culmination of the Northern Irish conflict which pitted Catholic republicans against Protestant unionists for 30 years, with the participation of the British Army.

In 1989, prior to the Queen’s visit to the East Coast and parts of the southern United States, an internal FBI memo noted that while no specific dangers are known, “the possibility of threats to the British monarchy is always present.” Republican Army (IRA)”.

A 1989 document states that while there were no specific threats against the queen, “heThe possibility of threats against the British monarchy is always present from the IRA”.

Isabella II, who died at the age of 96, was the target of other attacks.

In 1970, suspected IRA sympathizers attempted to derail his train west of Sydney, Australia, and in 1981, the IRA planned a bombing while traveling in northern Scotland.

In the 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 shots at him during a military parade to celebrate the monarch’s birthday in central London.

Source: EFE and AFP