In the 1980s, the FBI investigated a plot to assassinate Elizabeth II

Irish Republican Army (I WILLfor the acronym in English) or his sympathizers would try to attack the late queen Isabella II during one of his trips to the United States in 1980. This was discovered by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), which not only took the threats seriously, but also managed to increase measures to guarantee the safety of the monarch.

The revelations were published by the US security agency itself, which this week published documents related to the investigations it conducted into possible conspiracies against the British sovereign on The Vault website. The files became public after several media outlets requested them under the Right to Information Act.

According to the file, the alert was issued in San Francisco by a police officer visiting an Irish pub in that city. The agent alerted the FBI to a call he received from a man he met at the scene who was believed to be an IRA sympathizer. The officer reported that subject He said it wanted to avenge the death of his daughter, who “was killed by a rubber bullet in Northern Ireland” during the conflict that devastated the British region.

“He would try to harm Queen Elizabeth by throwing objects from the Golden Gate Bridge onto the yacht Britannia while she was sailing below, or try to kill her while visiting Yosemite National Park,” the document said.

Extreme measures

The authorities took the information seriously and the Secret Service, the body responsible for the security of American presidents and their visitors, closed the bridge to the passage of people during the trip of Elizabeth II and her husband Philip of Edinburgh to California. March 1983. However, the files do not mention any arrests.

In the 1980s, the Northern Irish conflict was at one of its most critical points. In 1979, Louis Mountbatten, the uncle of the Queen’s husband, was killed in an attack by an IRA commando. And because of the large community of Irish descent in the US, there was always the fear of an incident against a member of the royal family.