Obituaries

She married in 1942 and accompanied her husband on his military assignments before settling in the Washington area in 1961.

She was a member of the Terrapin Club, a University of Maryland athletics fan organization.

Her husband, retired Air Force Lt. Col. William C. Nichols, died in 2003.

Survivors include four children, Mary Nichols of Newark, Ohio, Karin Clancy of Pasadena, Robert Nichols of Fort Washington and Lauri Kemmerling of Chapin, S.C.; a sister; a brother; six grandchildren; and eight great-grandchildren.

-- Adam Bernstein

Rene Sanford PeytonCIA Analyst

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Rene Sanford Peyton, 89, chief of the CIA's Soviet Russia Reports and Requirements section in the early years of the agency and later a Soviet analyst, died July 9 at the Wheelock Terrace assisted living center in Hanover, N.H. He had complications of Alzheimer's disease.

From 1943 to 1945, Mrs. Peyton was on the staff of the Office of Strategic Services in Washington and Switzerland. She joined the CIA at its inception and led a 25-person section until 1957. She worked part time for several years and worked on contract while raising her children. In 1977, Mrs. Peyton went back to a full-time position at the agency until she retired in 1982. She had lived in Washington and Arlington County since 1943.

Mrs. Peyton was born in Columbus, Ohio. She was the daughter of an Army officer and grew up in Washington; Claremont, Calif.; Cheyenne, Wyo.; and Denver. She graduated from Scripps College in Claremont and received a master's degree in sociology and anthropology from Claremont College in 1940. For two years, she lived and worked in Panama and then began teaching at the University of Wisconsin as older faculty members were called away to the war.

She volunteered as director of Christian education for Christ Episcopal Church in Georgetown, as a Girl Scout troop leader in Arlington, as a trustee of the Episcopal Center for Children in Washington and as an outreach volunteer for St. Peter's Episcopal Church in Arlington. She maintained a liaison with the Rosebud, S.D., Sioux Indian reservation, where her grandfather, the Rev. David Sanford, had served as missionary in the 1880s.

Her husband of 32 years, Philip Barbour Peyton Jr., died in 1988.