On February 4, 1983, a police officer took a phone call from a man who described his plan to attack Queen Elizabeth. The threat occurred just weeks ahead of her February 27 arrival. The individual was seeking revenge for his daughter’s death via a rubber bullet in Northern Ireland. “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,” the FBI document details on page 81 of the 102-page document. In response, the secret service would “close the walkways on the Golden Gate Bridge as the yacht nears.”
Fortunately, the threat to Elizabeth’s life didn’t seem to extend beyond this one phone call, and the document doesn’t describe any additional actions to be taken. However, it does touch on potential protests planned in conjunction with the royal visit. One possible plan includes having a soup line give away “free beer to illustrate the contrast with the elegance of the state dinner,” which the FBI believed to add a “dangerous dimension” to the idea. While the Bureau anticipated the protests would be peaceful rather than violent, it ruefully admitted, “it will be very hard to anticipate and prevent incidents which may embarrass either the Queen or the president.”
