July 1, 1973. As the clock closed in at 1 AM, the sedan slowly turned down the familiarity of Trent Street towards the couple’s home. The sedan stopped in their driveaway; they were ready to get inside after their long day. The driver, Colonel Yosef “Joe” Alon, an Israeli military attaché, spent many long nights at social functions as part of his job. Many of those nights with his wife, Dvora, in tow.  

Unbeknownst to the couple, an armed international assassin lay in wait. Secreting himself in the bushes of their suburban home an hour before.   The couple’s children wait inside the confines of the unguarded home, but the assassin only has one target in sight.  

As Dvora entered the house, Joe returned to get his sports coat. All of a sudden, a gunshot rang out. Then 2-3-4 more, ending with a 5th shot.   Then the assassin slipped into the darkness from which he came.   

Dvora frantically looked outside, seeing Joe crumpled on the ground. Dvora left the safety of her home into the death of night to render aid to her fallen partner.   Joe gasped, attempting to speak. But, no words came out; Colonel Yosef Alon was gone.  

The assassin’s shots turned the sleepy confines of Bethesda, Maryland, into the scene of a cold-blooded assassination.

Across town, a sixteen-year-old Fred Burton slept quietly in bed, not knowing an international assassin breached his sleepy town, destroying lives.  

The International Assassin

Fred Burton is a expert on counterterrorism, New York Times Best-Selling author, and a security consultant to Fortune 500 companies.  

Fred moved into a law enforcement career in his twenties, wearing a badge for the first time with the Montgomery County Police and then moving on to the elite Diplomatic Security Service (DSS). He had this to say about the DSS, “It was a job that I didn’t feel qualified to do early on in my career. It was trial by fire, working mostly alone. Fortunately, I could stand on the shoulders of giants:  Tough hardscrabble agents battle-tested from hot spots like Beirut, Tehran, and Saigon. They showed me the way.”  

Back in 1973. A teenage Fred Burton lived across town from where the assassin took Colonel Alon’s life. The murder stayed with Fred even as he pursued his law enforcement and counterterrorism career.   It bothered Fred that an assassin could breach the supposed safety of “Everytown” America, take a life, and never be caught. Fred did not let this feeling subside; years later, he would hunt this assassin.  

The Case Is Closed

1976. The government’s investigation into the assassination of a high-ranking international officer, a potential intelligence operative, being gunned down in his driveway is closed. 

An international assassin took Joe Alon’s life on U.S. soil, and the FBI closed the case in just three years. Three years and, the FBI did not uncover any suspects or make any arrests but closed the case.  

The case closing kept nagging at Fred. “You know, the case, having been formally closed just three years after the murder, was something that never sat right with me.”

Connecting The Dots

Fred became a special agent working on terrorism investigations in the 1980s. However, he couldn’t dive into the hunt for Colonel Alon’s assassin until the mid-1980s. The tempo and pace of the current attacks prohibited a deep dive into what was a very old case. So, after he left the government, Fred started working with a detective on the Cold Case Squad with the Montgomery County, Maryland Police Department, and in 2007 things started to come together.    

The dots connected to the Black September terrorist organization.   Fred said, “We started to connect all the dots and figured out that the Black September organization, the group responsible for the Munich [Olympics] massacre, were actually the planners, organizers, and behind Colonel Joe Alon’s killing.

Black September emerged globally during the 1972 Olympics when they murdered Jewish athletes.

Fred’s investigative prowess jumped into high gear. Fred said,” I was able to come up with the identification of the person who had fled the United States after the shooting. He [the assassin] had been relocated under a false identity, and I could put him in a specific place at a particular time.”  

He reached out to the contacts he made in the counterterrorism world, specifically the Israelis. While the FBI closed the case decades earlier, the Israelis never stopped hunting for Alon’s assassin.   Fred said this about his contact with the Israelis, “I know this happened a long time ago, but you might find this of interest.” Fred pointed the Israelis in the right direction. 

After decades the case came to its conclusion. Fred learned later on the case “had been resolved.”Fred doesn’t know precisely what transpired and how the assassin was brought to justice.  

Is Fred A Target?

You would think hunting an assassin connected to a global terror group would make you question your every movement. Throughout his career, Fred found himself in dangerous and hair-raising experiences. However, he said he never felt in personal danger during his hunt for Alon’s killer. When our agents were killed in the bombing of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie, we looked into whether or not they could have been specifically targeted. I still think about that case and have many unanswered questions. When we were protecting high-threat VIPs like Yasser Arafat and Nelson Mandela. I thought about the serious threats against their lives while on protection details and in high-threat countries.”   

Where is Fred Now?

Fred’s career progressed to his ultimate post as the Deputy Chief of the DSS Counterterrorism and Protective Intelligence Division. Where he oversaw a myriad of activities with a focus on protecting lives. Fred is currently the Executive Director of the Ontic Center for Protective Intelligence. There he remains heavily vested in the intelligence and security field.  

Fred can be seen on podcasts and television as an expert consultant and is still consulting.   To read about the entire investigation into Colonel Alon’s assassination, check out Fred’s book: Chasing Shadows: A Special Agent’s Lifelong Hunt to Bring a Cold War Assassin to Justice. 

Recently, Fred has connected with Ted Andre, a film and music executive. Ted’s father was a highly-decorated U.S. Air Force officer with a special operations background and Colonel Alon’s close friend. More to follow… 

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