It’s always been one of those open secrets that Interarms, a famed Virginia-based arms importer, worked for the CIA or with the CIA. The owner, or who appeared to be the owner, Samuel Cummings, had a long history of working with the government, including the CIA. The old joke that no one ever really leaves the CIA seems quite true regarding Mr. Cummings.
There has been a massive release of documents from the CIA concerning the JFK assassination, and part of those documents confirmed that the CIA didn’t just work with Interarms; they owned the organization. Samuel Cummings acted as their representative and eventually purchased the company, but it seemed to be in the CIA space until it was taken over by High Standard.
Interarms and the Document
The connection between Interarms and JFK’s assassination is tenuous. Interarms indeed imported the Caracano rifle, but it was sold through a gun store in Chicago to Oswald. The reason Interarms even came up was because one Gary Underhill, a CIA employee, was openly discussing how a CIA clique killed Kennedy. Underhill reportedly committed suicide by shooting himself in the back of the head. Convenient.
Underhill was a friend of Samuel Cummings, and that’s how Cummings was tied to the released files. Cummings was first employed by the OSI in 1950 but had served as an Army weapon specialist in World War II. He was used to purchase weapons for a wide range of clients, from Hollywood to the Taiwan Government. In Korea, he was used to identify captured weapons.
According to the documents released, he purchased weapons for the CIA in 1951 and 1952. These weapons were intended to be funneled to resistance efforts behind the Iron Curtain. It was not until 1954 that Cummings became the principal agent of International Armament Corporation and Interarmco Ltd.
These companies were incorporated in the United States, Canada, and Switzerland. The files state that he engaged in sharp business practices and was extremely difficult to control.
The Business of Interarms
Samuel Cummings is largely responsible for the surplus in the United States. He went wild, buying guns from everyone who’d be willing to sell. He brought in piles of cheap surplus firearms from both World Wars and saturated the market with them. Outside of surplus, Interarms became the export sales agent for small arms companies, including the sole exporter of Armalite.
He took the AR-10 to South America and demonstrated the weapon. He famously sold 100 of the rifles to Fulgenico Batista. Fidel Castro’s forces intercepted those 100 rifles. Cummings sent Castro a letter asking him to pay for or return the rifles. Castra invited Cummings to visit and even paid for the rifles, hoping to purchase more.
An arms embargo blocked the sale. I imagine the CIA wouldn’t be excited for more arms to be sold to Castro’s forces. Cummings later supplied the arms used in the Bay of Pigs disaster.
Those Cuban AR-10s found their way to the Dominican Republic in the hands of rebels. This culminated with an enraged Trujillo demanding to know why AR-10s were being used by rebels when Cummings arrived to visit to discuss arms sales.
In 1972, an anonymous tip brought 126 cases to the attention of officials in Nieuwhaven on the Netherlands Antillian island of Suracao. These cases came from Venezuela and were on a Belgian freighter. The officials uncovered machine guns, grenades, ammo, and five dismantled U.S. F-86 Sabre fighter planes. This was a shipment by Interarms, and some of it eventually disappeared from the port.
Anyone Anywhere (Kind Of)
Cummings and Interarms only supplied American-backed forces with guns. This included M1 Garands to Castillo Armas in 1954, Vampire jets to Trujillo, small arms to Costa Rica and Nicaragua, Sten Guns to Finland, half a million FALs to Argentina, and Lee-Enfields to Pakistan and Kenya.
Cummings eventually purchased Interarms from the CIA for $100,000. As part of the deal, the CIA kept control of $250,000 of inventory that Cummings would sell for them. Even after this, it seemed like Cumming kept close ties to the Intelligence Community.
He reportedly attempted to purchase several Soviet-era weapons for the BND and DIA, including a T-54 Tank. The CIA claims in the documents released that they had no operational interest in Cummings and weren’t paying him. They state that any information he provided was volunteered to them.
I’m not conspiracy-minded, but if I had to guess, Cummings wasn’t getting money from the CIA directly, but they made it really easy for him to make a fortune selling weaponry. Governments can sell guns, but purchases are recorded and are forced to go through committees and approvals. Why do that when you can just have a private company move guns from one country to another?
Especially if you need to prop up a dictator or overthrow a democratically elected government? It’s nice to know that an open secret is no longer a secret. I wonder what comes out next.
