Randolph H. Pherson ’71

Randolph H. Pherson ’71 died at his home in Great Falls, Virginia, on January 11 of complications from vacuoles, E1 enzyme, X-linked, autoinflammatory, somatic syndrome (VEXAS). Randy had a distinguished academic career at Dartmouth, graduating magna cum laude with high honors in his major, international relations. As president of Foley House, he “managed” that motley crew while organizing repeated renditions of the game Diplomacy. With an M.A. from Yale in international relations, Randy began work as an intelligence analyst for the CIA. He retired in 2000 as national intelligence officer for Latin America, having been honored with the intelligence community’s Distinguished Intelligence Medal and the CIA’s Distinguished Career Intelligence Medal. Randy and his wife of 50 years, Katherine Hibbs Pherson, who also had a career in the CIA, founded Pherson Associates to develop best practices in analytic thinking, particularly among the intelligence community. Together they created a system called structured analytic technique (SAT) to help analysts mitigate bias while dealing with complex issues of uncertain outcome. During the past 20 years he wrote 13 books, gave lectures, and taught classes in using SAT. Randy applied those techniques to medical care in his 2020 book, How to Get the Right Diagnosis: 16 Tips for Navigating the Medical System. An important motivation for writing the book was his long struggle with VEXAS, which only recently has been recognized in medical diagnoses. Classmates remember Randy for the acuity of intellect and the organized clarity of his thinking, wrapped in humor and kindness.