FBI officer involved Thatcher assassination plot

[David Guyatt]

God has a sense of humour.

FBI feared one of its own was helping in plot to kill Margaret Thatcher

FBI believed a secretary in its New York office was leaking details of its investigations to the Provisional IRA

Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London said Oxford University should act "in the spirit of magnanimity" by setting up a college bearing Lady Thatcher's name. Photo: Rex Features









By Raf Sanchez, Washington

6:47AM GMT 09 Dec 2014

26 Comments


The FBI suspected that a female secretary in its New York office was leaking information to Irish republican terrorists who intended to assassinate Margaret Thatcher during a trip to America, according to newly-released documents.

Hundreds of pages of FBI files reveal how America's top law enforcement agency devoted considerable resources to tracking threats to Lady Thatcher both during and after her premiership.

The most remarkable of the documents is a 1992 memo from the FBI's then-director, William Sessions, to a small group of senior agents in New York warning them they appeared to have a Republican mole in their midst.

Mr Sessions wrote that a "uniquely-placed source" in Boston, a hotbed of Irish nationalism in the US, had told the FBI that one of its own was passing details to the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA).

"The source advised that there was a leak in the New York FBI office coming from a 'female, secretary type' that give PIRA access to 'computers, name checks and ID," the FBI chief wrote.

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He added that other allegations of a mole inside of the New York field office had "previously surfaced".
Determined to cut off the mole from any information that might prove valuable to the plotters, Mr Sessions ordered that all documents related to the assassination investigation be sent to two trusted senior agents and not widely circulated.
The files, whose content was first reported by the Guardian, do not make clear whether the mole was ever found but they detail the depth of US concern that the PIRA might try to strike at Lady Thatcher in America.
The FBI's fears focused on two PIRA members, whose names are redacted in the files, who were operating inside the US in 1992. Both were apparently based in California but fled to the East Coast after several of their associates were arrested in June.
A month later, the FBI's source began warning about a plot to murder Lady Thatcher during a two-week speaking tour she was making across America in September 1992.
The FBI assessed that the two PIRA operatives were serious threats. One had allegedly planted a bomb at a high-profile anti-terrorism conference in London in September 1990. The other was allegedly a part of a PIRA squad that worked to murder British troops in Europe and who had successfully evaded the clutches of Dutch police.
"These individuals are capable of carrying out [an assassination] based upon their backgrounds and technical expertise," one agent wrote.
In the months leading up to Lady Thatcher's visit, the FBI kept surveillance on a Irish pub in New York city. The pub's payphone was listed as a contact point for the PIRA.
The files describe a complex operation to disrupt the plot, involving agents from San Francisco to Boston, but where FBI officials deliberately avoided sending information electronically for fear of it leaking.
Ultimately, Lady Thatcher's 1992 trip appears to have gone off without a hitch. She kept up a punishing schedule of speeches, receptions and hair appointments.
The Daily Telegraph features several times in the FBI files, with agents clipping news stories about the IRA and noting that Lady Thatcher was due to attend a black-tie dinner hosted by the newspaper in Washington.
The FBI memo detailing concerns about a leak in the New York office
FBI file on Margaret Thatcher (2/2) by Raf Sanchez
FBI file on Margaret Thatcher (1/2) by Raf Sanchez