INTERARMCO FIRM IDENTIFIED AS COMPONENT OF CIA [Editorial commentary]

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01315R000300230001-6
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 13, 2004
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: April 5, 1973
• Content Type: NSPR

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M
INTERARMCO FIRM IIENTIPIED AS COPII'ONENT OF CIA
/Editorial commentary by S.Z. probably Stefan Zelicz7; Warsaw, Zoini'ierz
Wolnosci, Polish, 5 April 1973, P 2J
The UN Security Council session in Panama had wide repercussions
throughout the world. This session amounted to a political confrontation
between liberation aims of Latin American countries and imperialism of the
'United States, usurping for itself the right of domination in this area.
During the time of the above session a report on the interception of
a cargo of smuggled arms on Curacao Island -- a part of the Netherlands
Antilles -- passed almost unnoticed in some newspapers. Dutch customs
officers discovered aboard the ship Caroline, sailing under the Belgian
flag, 126 containers and boxes filled with not only machineguns and small
arms, ammunition, all types of military equipment including radar equipment,
but also five disassembled jet fighters. The consignment, furnished with
false shipping documents, was destined for Puerto Cortes in the Honduras.
The sender was Interarmco Ltd., with its place of business in Alexandria,
Virginia. In no way was the sender able to completely prevent the customs
officers' discovery of the contraband, although a considerable number of
the detained containers and boxes inexplicably vanished shortly thereafter
into the thin air.
Is there something in common between the UN Security Council session in
Panama, which ended with a moral defeat for Washington, and the smuggling
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engaged in by the private firm Interarmco Ltd.? This is by no means a
rhetorical question. This firm, managed by one Samuel Cummings, is in
fact a component, concealed by a signboard of a private enterprise, of
the CIA -- the notorious Central Intelligence Agency, Washington's
principal instrument in the area of dirty work. In Interarmco's warehouses,
located on the banks of the Potomac, are stored constantly weapons and
military equipment worth 10 million dollars. Through various channels weapons
are supplied to various dictatorial regimes as well as to other counter-
revolutionary forces, which Washington supports but does not want to compromise
itself by this support.
It was precisely from Cummings' warehouses in 1954 that weapons were
supplied to mercenary units which at that time were overthrowing the
progressive government of President Arbenz in Guatemala. The Cuban counter-
revolutionaries, who in 1961 launched the infamous Bay of Pigs invasion, were
also provided with arms and equipment from Cummings' warehouses.
The activities of Interarmco and of the CIA in general are actually not
formally
controlled even by the US Congress, while the US Government/(does not admit to
any responsibility for these activities. After all, this is precisely the
technique of domination of American imperialism in various regions of the
world; more precisely, it is a technique of imposing Washington's will when
other means fail.
Manifestly, in the eyes of world public opinion and with its participation
a political battle is under way against American claims to the role of world
gendarme, against Washington's export of counterrevolution. One must
remember, however, that apart from such forms of open use ooorce, as it is
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happening in Panama and as it took place in the Dominican Republic and in
other instances of armed intervention by US troops, there is also the
private, secretive, illegal and particularly dangerous activity of Interarmco
Ltd. and other instruments of the CIA. There exists the smuggling of
counterrevolution.
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