FBI reveals death threats to Reagan and Edward Kennedy

Secret FBI files were released yesterday on the late US senator Edward Kennedy which reveal the extent of death threats that were made against him throughout his political career.
By The Newsroom
Published 14th Jun 2010, 21:47 BST
Updated 14th Jun 2010, 21:47 BST

Alex Brown of the agency's records management division said the FBI had decided to post some 2,000 pages of previously secret pages about the Massachusetts Democrat on the agency's website.

Fresh documents showed that in May 1985 the US Capitol Police passed on a letter to the FBI which made a death threat against Senator Kennedy and Ronald Reagan, the then President.

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Although the FBI thought the author was dangerous, a psychological analysis suggested otherwise.

The release of the documents have been highly anticipated by historians, scholars and others interested in the life and long public career of one of the most prominent and powerful US politicians.

Media organisations have requested the documents through Freedom of Information Act requests.

Senator Kennedy faced death threats in the years following the assassinations of his older brothers and when he ran for President in 1980. President John F Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas on November 22 1963, while senator Robert F Kennedy died in Los Angeles on June 6 1968.

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The deaths of his two older brothers cast a long shadow on Ted Kennedy's life, and prompted fears he too would be targeted by assassins.

Senator Kennedy wrote in his memoir True Compass, released last year, that after his brothers' assassinations he was easily startled at

loud sounds, and would hit the deck whenever a car backfired.

The veteran politician, who served in the US Senate for nearly half a century, died in August 2009 after a year-long struggle with brain cancer aged 77.