the-astrology-book

The Reagans and Astrology
knows how to win it, and above all, he knows how to keep it, even if he is generous
with those close to him. Easy to get along with, he is persuasive and a successful businessman.
Not really faithful, he is nevertheless eager for tenderness.
—Michele Delemme
THE REAGANS AND ASTROLOGY
In May 1988, the late Donald T. Regan, secretary of the treasury (1981–85) and chief of
staff (1985–87) for President Ronald Reagan, published For the Record, his account of
his years in the Reagan White House. Regan’s description of the role Joan Quigley, first
lady Nancy Reagan’s astrologer, played in the Reagan presidency became an occasion for
the press to ridicule both astrology and the president. The New York Post, for instance,
ran the headline “Astrologer Runs the White House.” According to Regan, astrology
was a daily, sometimes an hourly, factor in Ronald Reagan’s schedule. In Regan’s book,
he made it appear that this control over scheduling amounted to placing the president’s
life—and consequently the American nation—under the control of Quigley.
Nancy Reagan’s memoir, My Turn, was published the following year. She
devoted an entire chapter to a defense of her reliance on the science of the stars. Reagan
defended herself by portraying astrology as a kind of emotional “pacifier.” She
said, for example, that “each person has his own way of coping with trauma and grief,
with the pain of life, and astrology was one of mine.” She also downplayed the role
astrology had in the Reagan presidency, asserting that Quigley did nothing more than
time events.
For her part, Quigley claimed that, in deference to the Reagans, she was reticent
to talk about her relationship with the Reagan White House until My Turn
appeared. Asserting that what Nancy Reagan had “left out about the way she used
astrology and my ideas would fill a book,” she decided to write her own. What Does
Joan Say was published the next year. If My Turn underestimated the role the science
of the stars played in the Reagan presidency, What Does Joan Say seems to overstate
astrology’s—or, at least, Quigley’s—role. Her book makes it appear not only that her
advice was an essential ingredient in most of President Reagan’s successes but also that
she was responsible for such important advice as persuading the president to stop
viewing the Soviet Union as the “evil empire.” Quigley, in other words, portrayed herself
as the pivotal influence behind the rapprochement between the United States
and the Soviet block and, by implication, as responsible for the subsequent collapse of
the iron curtain.
For astrologers, What Does Joan Say raises broader issues. In the first place, the
relationship between Quigley and the Reagans reminds astrologers that their science
was founded by people who studied the stars for the benefit of powerful political figures.
Thus, while some contemporary astrologers might condemn Quigley’s advice to
Ronald Reagan (a president viewed as too right wing by the generally liberal astrology
community), she clearly falls into the tradition of court astrologers of former eras—a
tradition that nurtured and even gave birth to the type of astrology known today.
What are the ethical ramifications of providing astrological information for political
[572] THE ASTROLOGY BOOK