Major General John David Carew Graham, CB, CBE, CStJ (18 January 1923 – 14 December 2012) was a British Army officer who was instrumental in the installation of Qaboos bin Said as Sultan of Oman in the 1970 Omani coup d'état.
There he clandestinely assessed the Czech Armed Forces activities, including the building of airfields, barracks and the adaptation of the Czech-gauge railway lines to take Russian rolling stock, all at a time of great tension, when a Soviet attack on war-exhausted western Europe was thought by many to be inevitable and imminent.
[1] Sultan Said bin Taimur, the Omani absolute ruler, had outlawed almost all aspects of twentieth-century development and relied on British support to maintain the rudimentary functions of the state.
In 1962 a dissatisfied tribal leader, Mussalim bin Nafl, formed the Dhofar Liberation Front (DLF) and obtained arms and vehicles from Saudi Arabia, and the country had been in a state of rebellion ever since.
[1] He became Assistant Chief of Staff, Joint Exercises, Allied Forces Central Europe in 1974 and, following promotion to major-general, he was appointed General Officer Commanding (GOC) Wales in 1976 before retiring in 1978.