# Larry Devlin CIA Chief of Station in Léopoldville from July 1960 — arriving about ten days after Congolese independence — to 1967. The single human hinge between Washington, [[Mobutu Sese Seko]]'s rise, and the fate of [[Patrice Lumumba]]. In late 1960 Devlin received assassination instructions for Lumumba, delivered by the CIA scientist Sidney Gottlieb travelling under a cover name, with toxic material to be concealed in something Lumumba would put in his mouth. Devlin testified to the [[Church Committee]] that he received the instructions and HQ confirmation, took exploratory steps over some months, and considered the plan "a pretty wild scheme professionally." He stalled, and the poison was never used. What he did instead is the live historical dispute. Declassified documents establish **Project Wizard**, a CIA operation running from August 1960 that paid eight Congolese leaders including Mobutu — whom Devlin had known before the coup. The CIA's own *Studies in Intelligence* review of Stuart Reid's *The Lumumba Plot*, published in March 2024, concedes that Devlin was "in constant touch with Mobutu's inner circle about the Lumumba problem," facilitating the transfer to Katanga where Tshombe's forces killed him. Stephen Weissman's documentary work reports Devlin received advance notice on 14 January 1961 that Lumumba would be moved to the home territory of his enemies; Devlin said he did not recall the warning. See [[Assassination of Patrice Lumumba]]. He later ran the CIA's Africa Division and retired in 1974 — and then **returned to Zaire as business agent for Maurice Tempelsman**, the diamond, cobalt and uranium dealer, advising Mobutu's government on mineral deals. That final detail is why he belongs in this cluster rather than only in an intelligence-history one. The officer who managed the American side of the Congo Crisis spent his second career monetising the relationship it produced. His memoir, ***Chief of Station, Congo*** (2007), is the most important first-person American account of the period and should be read as what it is: self-exculpatory on Lumumba. ## See also [[Assassination of Patrice Lumumba]] · [[Mobutu Sese Seko]] · [[Church Committee]] · [[Congolese History Hub]] · [[Conflict Minerals Hub]]