SHAWN POGATCHNIK
AP
Friday, December 29, 2006
DUBLIN, Ireland -- President John F. Kennedy was the subject
of three separate death threats during his visit to Ireland in
1963, according to newly declassified police documents released
Friday.
The documents released by the Irish Justice Department said police
received two anonymous telephoned warnings in the weeks before
the arrival of the United States' first Irish Catholic president.
A third threat went to the newsroom of the Irish Independent newspaper.
Kennedy's June 26-29 visit went ahead trouble free as he was
greeted by adoring crowds in Dublin, Cork, Galway and at his family
homestead in County Wexford, in southeast Ireland.
He was assassinated in Dallas five months later.
One threat claimed a sniper would target Kennedy as his motorcade
traveled from Dublin Airport to the residence of the Irish president
at the start of his visit. The second warned a bomb at Shannon
Airport, in southwest Ireland, would detonate as Air Force One
was about to depart.
According to the documents the third threat, phoned to the newspaper,
indicated that Kennedy would be attacked at Dublin Airport, although
the method wasn't specified.
The documents detailed police security concerns _ and also reflected
officials' desire to impress both U.S. visitors and onlookers
in Britain, Ireland's colonial master until 1922.
In a letter, Commissioner Daniel Costigan, the commander of Ireland's
national police force in 1963, described the Kennedy tour as "the
most important visit to this country since the establishment of
the state, with worldwide publicity. British journalists are likely
to be ready to criticize any fault in arrangements."
He wrote that although unlikely, "we cannot overlook the
possibility" of an assassination attempt.
Costigan said his officers would use binoculars to monitor rooftops
along the route of the presidential motorcade. He said an unspecified
number of police would be armed with handguns, rifles and submachine
guns _ an exceptional measure in a country with a largely unarmed
police force _ to engage any would-be sniper.
The documents indicated that 6,404 police officers were on duty
the night Kennedy arrived, and 2,690 lined the U.S. president's
route from Dublin airport to the Phoenix Park mansion of Irish
President Eamon de Valera.
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