Robert W. Jackson

Robert William Jackson (born March 18, 1959) is a US Navy veteran who served as a second class petty officer on the and became a whistleblower. In the eighties, Jackson denounced the use of the USS ''Kitty Hawk'' to sell F-14 parts and missiles to Iran illegally. Later, it was discovered that this ring of smugglers was part of a wider operation involving three different US Navy carriers, and an essential part of a more significant conspiracy, later referred to as the Iran–Contra affair.

On October 1, 1985, Jackson testified before the House Sea Power Subcommittee, sharing 2,000 pages of Navy documents that showed evidence of fraud, forgery, and kickbacks aboard the aircraft carrier ''Kitty Hawk''. The panel was chaired by Rep. Charles Bennet. Testifying along with Jackson were Rep. Jim Bates (D-San Diego) and Commodore James B. Whittaker, the Navy's assistant commander for inventory and systems integrity.

Jackson's accusations crossed path with an open FBI investigation, which arrested seven suspects. These included an aviation storekeeper on the helicopter ship ''Belleau Wood'', two Navy employees, a civilian warehouse worker, and an aviation storekeeper on the aircraft carrier ''Kitty Hawk''. Other than that, three civilians and an Iranian based in London also were arrested. Besides ''Kitty Hawk'' and ''Belleau Wood'', a third aircraft carrier based on the West Coast was also involved. At the time, the case was considered the first time a hostile country has penetrated the Pentagon's supply system.

In August 1985, US District Judge Earl B. Gilliam issued a broad gag order to prevent the seven people charged with stealing the F-14 fighter parts from the Navy and smuggling them to Iran from discussing the case. But the gag order was also applied to defense attorneys, federal prosecutors, and potential witnesses, which sealed Jackson's allegations and kept the story hidden from public.

Jackson's accusations were later revealed in two different books: Robert Jackson's memoirs, named ''Running Scared'', and a book called ''The Documents Behind Running Scared''. Provided by Wikipedia