Intelligence Analyst Paul S. McPherson, 87

Paul Shedd McPherson, 87, a retired official with the Foreign Broadcast Information Service and an ardent Anglophile, died of emphysema Dec. 17 at the Washington Home hospice. He was a D.C. resident.

Mr. McPherson, a Chicago native, was a student at the University of Chicago when he enlisted in the Army in 1942. After graduating from Officer Candidate School, he served with the 278th Engineer Combat Battalion in the Rhineland, Ardennes and Central Europe campaigns. Discharged in 1946, he remained a reservist until 1963, retiring a major.

Returning to the University of Chicago, he received an undergraduate degree in international relations in 1948, took graduate courses and later that year joined the Foreign Broadcast Information Service as an intelligence analyst. The service at the time monitored Soviet, Chinese and East European radio broadcasts and other media for the CIA and other national security agencies.

He served as acting chief and chief of the service's analytical office, then called the special reports branch. He became chief of the service's London bureau in 1961 and of the Okinawa bureau in 1966.

Mr. McPherson was an acknowledged expert at drawing inferences about the intentions of Soviet and Chinese leaders, based on the content and behavior of the media in their respective countries. He was credited with identifying some of the earliest signs of the Sino-Soviet split. He retired in 1971.

Mr. McPherson's Anglophilia was nurtured in the 1960s when he lived with his family in Streatley-on-Thames, west of London. He also lived in the village for five years after he retired, on property above the Thames Valley that included three greenhouses, apple and plum orchards, rose beds, an ambitious vegetable garden and a grass tennis court.

Deeply interested in archaeology, he immersed himself in the subject of Roman roads that laced England and enjoyed traveling the length and breadth of the country with a sheaf of maps published by Great Britain's national mapping agency. He also was a longtime contributor to "The Good Food Guide" and "The Good Pub Guide" and was a member of the English Place-Name Society.

A skilled photographer, he compiled a large collection of prints, slides and home movies of the English countryside and its people. He collected English Windsor chairs and antique English treen -- small, intricately crafted wooden items with a functional purpose.

Despite his love and respect for all things English, Mr. McPherson thought the world's most beautiful city was Kyoto, Japan's old capital. He studied its history and collected original art and poetry.

Mr. McPherson returned to the District in 1977 but continued living in England for three or four months every year until failing health about six years ago made it difficult for him to travel.

His marriage to Rozanne Armstrong McPherson ended in divorce.

Survivors include three daughters, Camilla McPherson Jacobs of Sykesville, Ellen McPherson Simmons of the District and Priscilla McPherson Phillips of Vienna; a sister; and four grandchildren.