Timothy Landon

Brigadier Sir James Timothy Whittington Landon, KCVO, (born 20 August 1942, Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada; died 6 July 2007, Winchester, Hampshire, England) served in the British and Omani armies and was instrumental in the development of the present Sultanate of Oman. He was one of Britain's wealthiest people.

Born to a British Brigadier General and a Canadian mother, Tim Landon attended Eastbourne College in Sussex. As a graduate of the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, Landon was posted to the 10th Hussars.

With his regiment, he travelled overland from Europe to Arabia and arrived in Oman in the mid-1960s. He was sent there as part of a British military operation to help Sultan Said bin Taimur defeat the Soviet-backed Dhofar Rebellion. He was stationed in the south as an intelligence officer, but was transferred to Muscat. There he became an integral part of the British-aided coup to remove the old Sultan, whose draconian style of rule – which was all but preventing the country's development and progression – was feeding the flames of the Dhofar insurgency that was poised to spread the length of Oman and threaten the Straits of Hormuz, and subsequently much of the West's oil supply.

Landon, who was close to the Sultan's son Qaboos from his Sandhurst days, was allowed to visit his friend, although the Sultan had placed his son under house arrest. Convincing the son to oust his father from the throne was no easy task. The coup occurred on 23 July 1970, when Landon was twenty-seven. Said bin Taimur was confronted at his palace and told to sign over power to his son. The only confirmed casualty in this otherwise bloodless coup was the old Sultan's foot when he inadvertently shot himself. The deposed ruler was flown to London on an RAF Transport, where he died two years later in the Dorchester Hotel. He ended up living in a suite at the Dorchester hotel until his death in 1972. When asked once what was his greatest regret, the old man replied: "Not having had Landon shot."

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