archy
Member
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The Lahti is a Finnish weapon, used against Russians during the 4-month Soviet invasion of Finland before WWII, and in the aftermath fighting that followed, known to the Finns as the *Continuation War.*
Of course, the Lahti also served Cuban exile groups sponsered by the CIA attacking supply ships in Cuban harbors in the 1969. And a few US *advisers* to the Cubanos may have gone along on some of those raids, some even as gunners. When the international arms trading firm of Interarmco arranged a nice swap with the Finnish government in 1959 for the trade of 100,000 WWII British Sten guns, the Lahtis and some captured Russian belt-fed machineguns were included in the deal, and it was generally figured at the time that they turned up on the civilian market only as a cover to arrange a possible alternative source of the guns turning up in exile group hands.
At one point, the activities of competing federal agencies resembled a Chinese fire drill as the FBI would officiously sieze the weapons of exile raiders, only to have new ones supplied by the CIA and military intelligence.
That included arms up to and including Sherman tanks that had *somehow* slipped through the demilitarization process before getting into the Cubano raiders' hands.
A planned second invasion of the island not deperndent on promised US air support that wouldn't show up was planned for early 1964, but never materialized. But interestingly, the investigation into that raid was centered on Dallas rather than Miami.
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The Lahti is a Finnish weapon, used against Russians during the 4-month Soviet invasion of Finland before WWII, and in the aftermath fighting that followed, known to the Finns as the *Continuation War.*
Of course, the Lahti also served Cuban exile groups sponsered by the CIA attacking supply ships in Cuban harbors in the 1969. And a few US *advisers* to the Cubanos may have gone along on some of those raids, some even as gunners. When the international arms trading firm of Interarmco arranged a nice swap with the Finnish government in 1959 for the trade of 100,000 WWII British Sten guns, the Lahtis and some captured Russian belt-fed machineguns were included in the deal, and it was generally figured at the time that they turned up on the civilian market only as a cover to arrange a possible alternative source of the guns turning up in exile group hands.
At one point, the activities of competing federal agencies resembled a Chinese fire drill as the FBI would officiously sieze the weapons of exile raiders, only to have new ones supplied by the CIA and military intelligence.
That included arms up to and including Sherman tanks that had *somehow* slipped through the demilitarization process before getting into the Cubano raiders' hands.
A planned second invasion of the island not deperndent on promised US air support that wouldn't show up was planned for early 1964, but never materialized. But interestingly, the investigation into that raid was centered on Dallas rather than Miami.
