Motive for Alon Murder Still Unknown Fbi and State Dept. Say

Both the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the State Department continue to consider as unknown the motive for the slaying by five revolver bullets early Sunday of Israeli diplomat Yosef Alon.

Special agent Thomas Farrow of the FBI office in Baltimore who is leading the investigation told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency yesterday that “we are not ruling out any potential motive” and added that “we are pursuing every idea on this.” In this connection he mentioned the “political aspect” and also the possibility of vendetta involving a personal grudge or ordinary street crime.

At the State Department, spokesman John Hare when asked about motive said, “I prefer to leave the investigation to the FBI and local police.” However, Hare confirmed that the Department has received “messages of concern” regarding security measures from diplomatic missions in Washington, but he would not identify them.

Other sources here emphasized that FBI investigators are stressing that the slaying might have been an ordinary street crime because Al-on’s wife was not shot although she was only a few feet away from the scene of the killing at the Alon home in nearby Bethesda, Md.

Another aspect of the killing supporting the street crime motive and also attributed to unidentified FBI sources held that terrorists normally enter a home and attack a whole family. However, these reports did not square with agent Farrow’s report to the JTA in which he contended that “all ideas” were being run down. The steadfast position at the State Department and the FBI to avoid emphasis on a political aspect contrasted sharply with Israeli official and press view which indicated certainty that the killing was political.