FBI files reveal 1983 threat to kill monarch

The FBI uncovered a potential threat to kill Queen Elizabeth II during the 1980s while she was visiting the United States, files released online by the agency show.

The monarch and her husband, Prince Philip, visited the US from February to March 1983, at a time when Northern Ireland was experiencing the long period of sectarian violence known as the Troubles.

According to the 102-page document on the FBI’s online vault, the threat came in a phone call from a man who claimed his daughter had been killed by a rubber bullet fired by British forces in Northern Ireland. The man said he ‘‘was going to attempt to harm Queen Elizabeth’’ during her trip by dropping an object on to the royal yacht from San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge, or in an attack when she visited Yosemite National Park, the report said.

The intelligence came via a police officer who frequented a pub popular with sympathisers of the Irish Republican Army (IRA).

The files give an insight into the FBI’s efforts to manage risks arising from the monarch’s private and public visits to the US from the 1970s on. They note that ‘‘several anonymous threatening telephone calls’’ were made to local police. Many of the perceived threats were related to the IRA.

In another entry about her 1983 visit, police departments warned the FBI that ‘‘it will be very hard to anticipate and prevent incidents which may embarrass either the queen’’ or then-US president Ronald Reagan.

The FBI records reveal its considerations about other protests planned for Elizabeth’s visits – including demonstrations planned for when she attended a baseball game, and an incident in which a pilot received a summons after flying a small plane trailing a banner reading ‘‘England, get out of Ireland’’ over New York’s Battery Park during the monarch’s visit for the US Bicentennial in 1976.