Thomas J. Devine

Thomas J. Devine (born December 9, 1926) in Rochester, New York, a 1949 B.S. M.I.T. graduate, worked for the CIA, and was an oil-wildcatting associate of George H. W. Bush. Devine helped Bush found Zapata Offshore in 1953 and he was an unnofficial foreign affairs advisor to Representative Bush in the 1960s. He accompanied Bush on a trip to Vietnam from 26 December 1967-11 January 1968, for which he was issued an interim top-secret clearance by the US Department of Defense. 

Devine married Alexandra Mills of Hobe Sound, FL, in April, 1973. William B. Macomber, Jr., best man in the 1946 wedding of Nancy Walker Bush Ellis, was Devine's best man. Macomber's brother, Celanese Corporation president, John D. Macomber, appointed Devine as a vice president (1973). John D. Macomber is the longtime mentor and business associate of Michael L. Ainslie, second husband of Suzanne B. Hooker, daughter of Edward Gordon Hooker , the deceased school roommate of George HW Bush and step-nephew and oil exploration business partner  George de Mohrenschildt, a petroleum geologist and professor who befriended Lee Harvey Oswald in the summer of 1962 and maintained that friendship until Oswald's death two days after the assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy.

Devine's friendship and "close relationship" with Bush Sr. continued as Bush was first made US Ambassador to the United Nations (from 1971-1973), then nominated as Director of the CIA (November 1975).

Devine first left the CIA in 1953 to go into business. He later rejoined the CIA under non-official cover (NOC) status on 12 June 1963, as a covert commercial asset for Project WUBRINY/LPDICTUM.

When Zapata Oil was sold, Devine joined the investment firm of Train, Cabot and Associates in New York City. He had no operational involvement in the CIA from 1968 through November 1975.

Gale Allen, the CIA's Director of Operations, wrote that Devine was the "most discreet and security conscious business contact" he had ever met.