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Ireland Knew of Threats to Kennedy in 1963 Trip

Irish authorities were aware of three separate death threats against President John F. Kennedy when he visited Ireland in 1963, five months before his assassination in Dallas, according to government papers released in Dublin on Friday.

Two threats came in anonymous telephone messages to the police saying President Kennedy would be killed during the three-day visit, and a third was received by the news desk at a major newspaper group, Ireland’s Department of Justice said in declassified documents.

While the police assumed the threats were hoaxes, the police took extra security precautions, deploying nearly half the country’s police force on Mr. Kennedy’s route from the Dublin airport. The president’s visit was seen in Ireland as historic, in part because of Mr. Kennedy’s own Irish Catholic roots and the fact that he was the first Irish Catholic American to be elected president of the United States. The Irish police sensed that the world was looking on to see how the visit was handled, the documents indicated.
Read entire article at NYT