A newly leaked collection of FBI data has uncovered a possible assassination plot against Queen Elizabeth II during her 1983 visit to California.
According to the paper, the alleged threat stemmed from a phone conversation from “a man who claimed that his daughter had been killed in Northern Ireland by a rubber bullet.” It also mentions a club frequented by Irish Republican Army (IRA) sympathizers.
In February and March 1983, the queen and her husband, Prince Philip, visited the west coast of the United States, and the journey went off without a hitch.
In 1979, IRA paramilitaries opposed to British control in Northern Ireland assassinated Louis Mountbatten, the last colonial governor of India and Philip’s uncle, with a bomb.
The file says that the man claimed he was going to attempt to harm the queen “by dropping some object off the Golden Gate Bridge onto the royal yacht Britannia when it sails underneath”.
Alternatively, he “would attempt to kill Queen Elizabeth when she visited Yosemite National Park”, they added.
While the FBI was unaware of any specific threats against the queen, a second file among the records stated that “the possibility of threats against the British monarchy is ever present from the Irish Republican Army.”
The queen, who died in September at the age of 96, was previously believed to be the subject of numerous assassination attempts.
Six blanks shot Fired
In 1970, suspected IRA sympathizers attempted unsuccessfully to derail her train west of Sydney, while the IRA attempted to bomb her on a visit to Shetland, off the northeast coast of _Scotland, in 1981.
During a visit to New Zealand the same year, a mentally ill youngster fired a single shot at the queen’s automobile.
While touring the South Island city of Dunedin, Christopher Lewis fired a single shot.
The aborted effort was covered up by police at the time, and it was only in 2018 that New Zealand’s Security Intelligence Service (SIS) spy agency disclosed papers in response to a media request that it became public.
Another adolescent shot six blanks at her during the monarch’s Trooping the Colour birthday parade in central London in 1981.
While the adolescent told troops who disarmed him that he “wanted to be famous,” the queen swiftly soothed her scared horse and continued on.
The next year, in one of the most notable security breaches of her reign, Michael Fagan gained access to the queen’s chamber and spoke to her for 10 minutes before she raised the alarm.
After a few beers, the unemployed decorator scaled the walls of Buckingham Palace, crawling up a drainpipe to gain access to the queen’s London palace.
He reportedly wandered into her bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed for a discussion with the agitated monarch before being enticed away by the offer of a shot of whisky by a court employee.
