Anna Elizabeth 'Nancy' Nimitz, 84; Rand Economist, Researcher

Anna Elizabeth "Nancy" Nimitz, 84, a Rand economist and researcher and daughter of World War II Pacific Fleet Adm. Chester W. Nimitz, died Feb. 19 of natural causes at her home in Topanga.

Nimitz earned a bachelor's degree in English literature and library science at George Washington University and a master's in international relations at Radcliffe. She began her career as a research assistant at the Russian Research Center in Cambridge, Mass.

In 1952, Nimitz moved to the Rand Corp., the Santa Monica-based think tank, where she specialized in economic studies of Soviet agriculture. Her work involved research on Soviet National Income and Product.

Nimitz, who loved the ocean, kept a pair of heavy binoculars mounted in her yard, trained on a visible sliver of sea and sand. The binoculars, once belonging to a Japanese destroyer, had been a gift to her late father.