Newly released FBI documents show that authorities foiled a plot to kill the queen in San Francisco or Yosemite National Park, during a time of heightened tensions over the conflict in Northern Ireland.
About a month before Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip visited the Bay Area and Yosemite National Park in 1983 — dining with President Ronald Reagan and Joe Montana and enjoying a serenade from Tony Bennett — a San Francisco police officer received an ominous call from a man he met at a favorite Irish pub.
As the officer told the FBI, the man told him he wanted to avenge his daughter who “had been killed in Northern Ireland by a rubber bullet,” according to newly released FBI documents.
In the call, dated Feb. 4, 1983, the man described how he would harm the British monarch during her California visit, the BBC and New York Times said, citing the FBI documents. The man said he would do this “either by dropping some object off the Golden Gate Bridge onto the Royal Yacht Britannia when it sails underneath, or (he) would attempt to kill Queen Elizabeth when she visited Yosemite National Park,” the BBC reported.
Responding to the threat, the Secret Service made plans to close the walkway on the bridge as the yacht approached the bridge, the BBC said. The documents don’t say what measures were taken at Yosemite, nor do they say if anyone was arrested for the threat, the New York Times said.
Elizabeth II, who died in September, paid California a multi-day visit in 1983, which started in San Diego and included a tour of a Los Angeles film studio and a stop at Reagan’s ranch in Santa Barbara, the New York Times reported.
