Larry Devlin

--- created: 2026-05-15 updated: 2026-05-16 title: Larry Devlin aliases:

• Lawrence Devlin
• Lawrence Raymond Devlin tags:
• Person
• CIA
• Congo
• ColdWar
• Assassination
• 1960s category: "Intelligence & Government" summary: "Larry Devlin was the CIA Station Chief in Leopoldville from 1960 to 1967 who received assassination orders against Patrice Lumumba including poison delivered by Sidney Gottlieb, claims he refused to execute the order, and became the primary CIA sponsor of Mobutu Sese Seko's rise to power." born: 1922 died: 2008 location: "Leopoldville (Kinshasa), Democratic Republic of Congo"

Lawrence Raymond Devlin (1922-2008) was a CIA officer who served as Station Chief in Leopoldville (now Kinshasa), Congo, from 1960 to 1967 - one of the most consequential postings in Cold War Africa. Devlin received and acknowledged CIA orders to assassinate Patrice Lumumba, including the personal delivery of biological poison by CIA Technical Services chief Sidney Gottlieb, while claiming in subsequent testimony and memoir that he refused to execute the order. His long tenure in the Congo made him the primary architect of the CIA's relationship with Mobutu Sese Seko, whose 32-year dictatorship became one of the Cold War era's most sustained intelligence dependencies.¹

Congo Station and the Lumumba Crisis

Devlin arrived in Leopoldville in 1960, the year of Congolese independence from Belgium, positioned as the senior CIA officer in a country the Eisenhower administration considered critical to preventing Soviet expansion in Africa. The Congo's mineral resources - including uranium deposits that had supplied Manhattan Project material - and its geographic centrality made it an immediate focus of Cold War competition.

When Lumumba, the Congo's first elected Prime Minister, sought Soviet military assistance during the Katanga secession crisis, CIA Director Allen Dulles characterized him as a potential African Fidel Castro and authorized assassination planning. Devlin received cables from CIA headquarters authorizing action to "eliminate" Lumumba. In September 1960, Sidney Gottlieb - the CIA's chief of Technical Services who had developed assassination materials for other targets under the ZR RIFLE program - personally traveled to Leopoldville and delivered to Devlin a kit containing biological materials intended to poison Lumumba.

Devlin testified to the Church Committee in 1975 that he never used the materials and eventually disposed of them by throwing the poison into the Congo River. His testimony acknowledged he had understood the orders but claimed moral and practical objections to carrying them out.¹

Lumumba's Death

Despite Devlin's claimed refusal of the assassination order, Lumumba was captured, transferred to Katanga, and killed on January 17, 1961, by Katangese forces under Moise Tshombe with Belgian officers present. The precise extent of CIA foreknowledge or facilitation of this transfer - as opposed to the separate biological assassination plan Devlin received - has not been fully resolved by the documentary record.

Devlin acknowledged to the Church Committee that the CIA was aware of Lumumba's transfer to Katanga and that this transfer made his survival unlikely. A 2001 Belgian parliamentary inquiry found Belgian government and intelligence officers directly involved in the killing. The question of whether CIA officers encouraged or facilitated the handover remained contested.²

Mobutu and the Congo's Political Future

Devlin's most consequential operational role was his cultivation of Joseph Mobutu - at the time known as Joseph-Desire Mobutu, later renamed Mobutu Sese Seko - the Congolese Army chief of staff. Devlin developed a close personal relationship with Mobutu and provided financial support and intelligence backing during the 1960 political crisis. Mobutu's September 1960 "neutralization" of both President Joseph Kasavubu and Prime Minister Lumumba - temporarily removing both from power - was executed with CIA awareness and support.

Mobutu consolidated power definitively in November 1965 in a coup of which Devlin had advance knowledge. Devlin's sponsorship of Mobutu established the foundation for a CIA-Mobutu relationship that continued until the Cold War's end, during which the United States supported Mobutu's government while he looted an estimated $5 billion from the Congolese economy. Mobutu remained a critical CIA partner particularly for covert operations in neighboring Angola during the mid-1970s.

Later Career and Memoir

After his Congo posting, Devlin served in Laos during the CIA's secret war, working with the Hmong guerrilla force the agency had built. He retired from the CIA in the 1970s.

In 2007, one year before his death, Devlin published Chief of Station, Congo: Fighting the Cold War in a Hot Zone (Public Affairs, 2007), which confirmed the core elements of his Church Committee testimony while offering his own interpretation of events. The memoir acknowledged the poison delivery but maintained his claim of non-execution while providing detailed accounts of the operational environment that shaped his decisions.¹