The FBI recently disclosed records that detail a potential assassination attempt against Queen Elizabeth II during her 1983 trip to the US. Elizabeth died last September after serving as Queen of England for 70 years.
What Are the Details Surrounding the Attempted Assassination of Queen Elizabeth II?
Queen Elizabeth II faced a potential assassination threat during a 1983 visit to the US, FBI documents reveal https://t.co/cU94pedUsn pic.twitter.com/zvDCl6ALGT
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) May 26, 2023
The queen’s 1983 visit to the US included a stop in San Francisco in March. About a month before the trip, a man had called the San Francisco police department, claiming—according the FBI document—that “his daughter had been killed in Northern Ireland by a rubber bullet.”
The document goes on to say, “This man additionally claimed that he was going to attempt to harm Queen Elizabeth and would do this either by dropping some object off the Golden Gate Bridge onto the Royal Yacht Britannia when it sails underneath, or would attempt to kill Queen Elizabeth when she visited Yosemite National Park.”
In response, the Secret Service closed the walkways on the Golden Gate Bridge when the queen’s yacht neared. The documents do not mention any precautions being taken at Yosemite, nor does it mention whether arrests were made.
A Connection to the Irish Republican Army?
🇮🇪 The Race of the Gael
— temora / ᚈᚓᚋᚑᚏᚐ 🌲 (@ceodraoidh) July 30, 2023
by Seán Keating, 1938.
Depicting Seán McGarry, President of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, and Seán Moylan, Senior Officer of the Irish Republican Army and Commandant of the Cork No.2 Battalion. pic.twitter.com/FrM503uW9d
It is believed that the caller had some connection to the Irish Republican Army, a militant organization founded in 1919. The goal of the IRA was to end the British occupation of Northern Ireland, which is still a part of the United Kingdom today.
According to the US Department of Justice, the Irish Republican Army “is unmistakably a terrorist organization. As such, it should be dealt with through enforcement of the law against its illegal activities rather than through political negotiation…”
In 1970, IRA members were suspected to have attempted another assassination of the queen. Known as the Lithgow Plot, it involved would-be assassins placing a large wooden log over the train tracks at Lithgow in Australia.
The culprits were hoping that the log would derail a train carrying the royals.
According to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, “The advance train ahead of the Royals’ locomotive struck the log, but because it was going so slowly it did not derail, and the royal couple were apparently unaware anything untoward had happened at all.”
Then, in 1991, when the queen visited Baltimore to watch an Orioles game with ex-President George H.W. Bush, the FBI warned the Secret Service that “Irish groups” were planning protests at the stadium and had even “reserved a large block of grandstand tickets” to the game.
