Queen Elizabeth II faced a death threat from the IRA during a visit to the United States and while in San Francisco in 1983, according to documents released by the FBI.
The threat was made directly to a policeman of Irish origin by a person he met in a pub in the Californian city, frequented by descendants of immigrants with connections to the IRA, at one of the most critical moments in the Northern Irish conflict.
The policeman reported it to the federal investigative agency, which gave maximum credibility to the leak. The alleged interlocutor informed the camouflaged policeman of his intention to avenge the death of his daughter who had died during a demonstration due to the actions of the Northern Ireland police.
The threat, made on February 4, 1983, contained specific details of the attempt to launch a detonating object from the Golden Bridge at the passage of the Britannia yacht, or a possible action during the visit of the Queen and Philip of Edinburgh in the national park of Yosemite.
The FBI increased surveillance at the Golden Bridge during the royal visit, although the measures taken on the visit to Yosemite are unknown. The information is contained in a hundred pages of the FBI files declassified after the death of Elizabeth II in September 2022.
The Irish Republican Army actually attacked the 'premier' Margaret Tharcher in 1984 in an explosion in Brighton in which five people died and 30 were injured.
The records were published on The Vault, the FBI's publicly accessible website, and include documents related to the queen's various visits to the United States, dating back to 1976, Efe reported.
Although 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 US: the IRA and its sympathizers," it says. the American chain.
Formed in the early 20th century but became an armed wing of the nationalist political movement Sinn Féin in the 1960s, the IRA sought to drive British forces out of Northern Ireland and unify Ireland, often by violent means.
The documents show that FBI agents routinely shared intelligence and preparations with the US Secret Service, local police agencies, and other law enforcement about the IRA and its sympathizers prior to and during state visits by the IRA. queen.
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.
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, despite knowing no specific dangers, "the possibility of threats to the British Monarchy is ever present." by the Irish Republican Army (IRA)".
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
