01 Burton text:Layout 1 11/3/10 2:03 PM Page i CHASING SHADOWS 01 Burton text:Layout 1 11/3/10 2:03 PM Page ii 01 Burton text:Layout 1 11/3/10 2:03 PM Page iii CHASING SHADOWS A SPECIAL AGENT’S LIFELONG HUNT TO BRING A COLD WAR ASSASSIN TO JUSTICE FRED BURTON AND JOHN BRUNING 01 Burton text:Layout 1 11/3/10 2:03 PM Page iv CHASING SHADOWS Copyright © Fred Burton, 2011. All rights reserved. First published in 2011 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN® in the United States—a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe, and the rest of the world, this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN: 978-0-230-62055-1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Burton, Fred. Chasing shadows : a special agent’s lifelong hunt to bring a Cold War assassin to justice / Fred Burton with John Bruning. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 978-0-230-62055-1 (hardback) 1. Burton, Fred. 2. Intelligence officers—United States— Biography. 3. Murder—Investigation—Case studies. 4. Alon, Josef, d. 1973—Assassination. 5. Intelligence officers—Israel—Biography. 6. Murder—Maryland—Bethesda—History—20th century. 7. Munazzamat Aylul al-Aswad. 8. Terrorism—Prevention—Case studies. 9. Conspiracies—Case studies. 10. Cold War. I. Bruning, John R. II. Title. JK468.I6B888 2011 364.152’3092—dc22 2010038120 A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library. Design by Letra Libre, Inc. First edition: April 2011 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Printed in the United States of America. 01 Burton text:Layout 1 11/3/10 2:03 PM Page v This book is dedicated to the late Mark Broxmeyer, an American patriot and a very good friend of Israel 01 Burton text:Layout 1 11/3/10 2:03 PM Page vi 01 Burton text:Layout 1 11/3/10 2:03 PM Page vii CONTENTS PROLOGUE The Long Pursuit 00 CHAPTER 1 The Crime 00 CHAPTER 2 The Lion of Hatzor 00 CHAPTER 3 The Investigation Begins 00 CHAPTER 4 Dvora’s Quest 00 CHAPTER 5 Conspiracy Theory 00 CHAPTER 6 Rolling Thunder 00 CHAPTER 7 Stealing the MiG-21 00 CHAPTER 8 The Bear’s Black Eye 00 CHAPTER 9 The Fate of the Evidence 00 CHAPTER 10 The Suspect List 00 01 Burton text:Layout 1 11/3/10 2:03 PM Page viii viii CHASING SHADOWS CHAPTER 11 Origins of Terror 00 CHAPTER 12 The Birth of Black September 00 CHAPTER 13 The Shadow War Begins 00 CHAPTER 14 Unbridled Vengeance 00 CHAPTER 15 Coming into Focus 00 CHAPTER 16 The CIA’s Involvement 00 CHAPTER 17 Tracking the Killers 00 EPILOGUE 00 Acknowledgments 00 Timeline 00 Notes 00 Bibliography 00 Index 00 01 Burton text:Layout 1 11/3/10 2:03 PM Page 1 PROLOGUE THE LONG PURSUIT n the night between June 30 and July 1, 1973, a man named Joseph Alon was murdered in the quiet suburban neighbor- Ohood only a few blocks from my house in Bethesda, Mary- land. I was sixteen at the time, and I still remember sitting down to breakfast the morning after and reading of it in our local paper.1 The aftershocks of that violent summer night resonated through my community for weeks. Not until much later did I re- alize that the shock waves were not limited to Bethesda and my narrow little world. That July morning became a turning point in my own life. It was the first time violence had intruded on the one place I felt most safe: home. I had a dim understanding that, outside Bethesda’s city limits, the world was on fire. Here in the quiet, leafy suburbs, however, we were supposed to be immune to such things. We were not, and it was a tough lesson to absorb at sixteen. The sense of vulnerability I felt at the time was one of the reasons I chose a career in law enforcement. Later I joined the Diplomatic Security Service (DSS) as a counterterrorism agent.2 Through the 01 Burton text:Layout 1 11/3/10 2:03 PM Page 2 2 CHASING SHADOWS 1980s and 1990s, my career took me to every hot spot and vio- lence-plagued region in the world. I worked cases that made front- page news across the globe, including the pursuit of such noted terrorists as Ramzi Yousef, the original World Trade Center bomber. But I never forgot the one case that shattered my illusion of safety. I had looked into it when I first joined the Montgomery County Police Department (which is in Maryland, near Wash- ington, D.C.) in 1971 and found the case file full of curious dead ends.3 The crime had never been solved. By the mid-1970s, the case had been virtually forgotten. While with the DSS, I dug deeper into the case files and dis- covered that this was no random act of violence. Eventually I ac- quired the entire file from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) as well as diplomatic documents related to the case.4 The more I learned, the more questions I had. Over the years, I worked on the case whenever I had a free moment—a night here, an afternoon there. The leads I developed shocked me. The realm of espionage fiction is full of government conspiracies and secrets, but they rarely occur in real life. But here, in a cold case dating to 1973, I discovered a tangled web of international espionage, vengeance, and multiple cover-ups by nations that should have known better. Researching the case took me from my middle- class neighborhood to the skies over North Vietnam, to the dark streets of downtown Beirut and the back alleys of Paris. The case was the ultimate onion: the more layers I peeled away, the more I found. When I was promoted to deputy director of counterterrorism of the DSS, I tried to reopen the case formally. That turned out to be a lost cause. I was stonewalled at almost every turn. 01 Burton text:Layout 1 11/3/10 2:03 PM Page 3 THE LONG PURSUIT 3 During my years as a counterterrorism agent, I kept a black Mole- skine book in my briefcase. In it I had listed the top international terrorists and unsolved cases that were my top priorities. When we caught or killed one of those on my list, I would scratch the name off with a few notes on how and when justice was served. After I left the DSS in the late 1990s to begin a second career as vice president for counterterrorism at Strategic Forecasting (Stratfor), I kept the black book close at hand. It represented un- finished business from my days in the field. Every now and then, one of those wanted criminals would be brought to justice, and I could cross another name off my list. The perpetrators of the Bethesda crime remained unknown and at large. That I had not solved it remained an open wound from my DSS days. I needed closure—not just for myself now but for the Alon family, who had been victimized by the perpe- trators. In the course of my investigation, I had formed a rela- tionship with the family and had discovered just how poorly they had been treated by their own government. They needed to see justice served far more than I. In the counterterrorism business, we saw a lot of innocents whose suffering never abated. Justice proved elusive too many times. I did not want that to happen with this case. I know a lot of agents and cops who work on cold cases into retirement. The unsolved ones are like unresolved elements of our own lives. They grow into obsessions, become part of us until we stake increasing amounts of our time, ego, and treasure on bringing the bad guys to justice. For years, my cold case domi- nated sections of our house in Austin, Texas. Initially, I covered 01 Burton text:Layout 1 11/3/10 2:03 PM Page 4 4 CHASING SHADOWS the refrigerator in Post-it notes that linked one event or clue to another. When my family protested, I put a desk in the bedroom and transferred all my research there. The yellow sticky notes found their way to the wall in front of my coffee-stained desk. They served as the flowchart of the case; they were the way I traced its tentacles across time and space. At night, after long days at Stratfor’s Austin office, I would return home to spend time with the family. But when everyone else turned in, I would settle down and work on the case by the light of a Gerber tent lantern, so as not to awaken my wife. I fol- lowed old leads, pursued new ones, and developed a host of sources in unlikely locations. Guilt propelled me forward. I should have done more on the case while with the DSS. I should have rattled enough cages at Langley to shake loose the files I needed. At the same time, being out of government service afforded me a level of freedom to ma- neuver that I would not have had otherwise.