Robert Webster Ford CBE (27 March 1923 – 20 September 2013) was a British radio operator who worked in Tibet in the late 1940s. He was one of the few Westerners to be appointed by the Government of Tibet in the period of "de facto" independence between 1912 and the year 1950 when the Chinese army marched on Chamdo. He was arrested and jailed for five years by the Chinese. In 1994, he declared that he "had the opportunity to witness and experience at first hand the reality of Tibetan independence." In 1956 he was appointed at the British Diplomatic Service and served in the Foreign Office.