{"id":125996,"date":"2018-06-04T09:00:13","date_gmt":"2018-06-04T13:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=125996"},"modified":"2018-06-05T12:54:12","modified_gmt":"2018-06-05T16:54:12","slug":"joan-quigley-ronald-reagans-guide-to-the-stars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/06\/04\/joan-quigley-ronald-reagans-guide-to-the-stars\/","title":{"rendered":"Joan Quigley, Ronald Reagan\u2019s Guide to the Stars"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cVirtually every major move and decision the Reagans made during my time as White House Chief of Staff was cleared in advance with this woman in San Francisco who drew up horoscopes to make certain that the planets were in a favorable alignment for the enterprise,\u201d writes Don Regan, President Reagan\u2019s chief of staff, in his memoir,\u00a0For the Record<\/em>. Regan kept a color-coded calendar on his desk, with \u201cgood\u201d days highlighted in green and \u201cbad\u201d days highlighted in red. Here\u2019s the calendar for the first few months of 1986:<\/p>\n

Jan 16\u201323 very bad
\nJan 20 nothing outside the WH\u2014possible attempt
\nFeb 20\u201326 be careful
\nMarch 7\u201314 bad period
\nMarch 10\u201314 no outside activity
\nMarch 16 very bad
\nMarch 21 no
\nMarch 27 no
\nMarch 12\u201319 no trips exposure
\nMarch 19\u201325 no public exposure
\nApril 1 careful
\nApril 11 careful
\nApril 17 careful
\nApril 21\u201328 stay home<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n

Regan came to feel that this astrologer held disproportionate power over global politics, far more than many cabinet members vetted by Congress. \u201cThe president\u2019s schedule is the single most potent tool in the White House,\u201d Regan writes. Nancy Reagan spoke to this woman nearly every weekend and grew furious when the White House staff made last-minute adjustments to the schedule without leaving time for her astrologer\u2019s approval.<\/p>\n

The astrologer\u2019s name was Joan Quigley. She was raised in a genteel San Francisco family, the closest California comes to old money. Her father owned a hotel and sent Joan and her sister, Ruth, to one of San Francisco\u2019s toniest private schools. When Joan was fifteen, she sat in on one of her mother\u2019s astrological consultations and was amazed by the certainty with which the astrologer could see the future and by the clean, almost mathematical quality of her methods. There was no communing with far-off spirits, no chanting, no tinctures, no grotesque velvet table covers.<\/p>\n

By the time Quigley began working with the Reagans, she was in her fifties and had been working as an astrologer for decades, with high-profile clients such as the talk-show host Merv Griffin. She dressed like a card-carrying member of the Daughters of the American Revolution, her eyebrows always thinly plucked and her blonde hair secured in a bob.<\/p>\n

Although Quigley had worked closely with the Reagans during the election, Nancy had stopped returning her calls during their first few months in the White House. But after the president was nearly killed by a shooter as he was exiting the Washington Hilton, Nancy reached out to Quigley again. \u201cCould you have told about the assassination attempt?\u201d she asked. Yes, Quigley assured her, she could have. She resumed her position in Nancy\u2019s inner circle. She knew her involvement would need to be kept secret, as it was during the campaign. \u201cI would be giving up my time and effort like all those who take part in any administration, sacrificing the rewards they commanded in the private sector in order to serve their country. I was aware, however, that unlike them I would not have the prestige they had while serving.\u201d But Quigley worried about Reagan\u2019s safety; his chart suggested that he was entering a risky period, and Quigley felt it was her duty as an American to protect her president from harm.<\/p>\n

Millions of Americans read their horoscopes each month. Newspapers frame these monthly horoscopes as entertainment, and their devoted readers assure their skeptical friends that they skim them with breakfast \u201cfor fun,\u201d too ashamed to admit to their instinct for magical thinking. People consult horoscopes for the same reason they consult advice columns\u2014because everyone craves reassurance and because they address our ambitions and fantasies, the subjects that quietly consume us but that our daily lives often require us to ignore.<\/p>\n

But unlike advice givers, there\u2019s never been an astrologer who\u2019s ascended to household name. The practice has too witchy an association. If Nancy Reagan had been open about her relationship with Quigley, if she had admitted that Quigley\u2019s forecasts afforded her a greater sense of safety than any Secret Service report, the practice might have lost its taint, and perhaps Quigley would have become America\u2019s first celebrity astrologer, remembered less for the accuracy of her predictions than for the way she made people feel.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

Quigley waited and waited for a formal invitation to the White House. She was not invited to the party celebrating Reagan\u2019s election in 1980 or his reelection in 1984\u2014even though she considered herself crucial to both victories. Although she and Nancy spoke on the phone constantly, they\u2019d met only once in person, and quickly, at an election event in San Francisco in 1976.<\/p>\n

In April 1985, Quigley booked a trip to D.C. She didn\u2019t tell any friends or family she\u2019d be in town. Her trip had only one purpose: to take up Nancy on her open-ended invitation to tea at the White House. She happened to be in town on the night of a state dinner honoring the president of Algeria, and Nancy encouraged her to attend.<\/p>\n

Quigley was careful not to wear any of the cocktail dresses she\u2019d worn on The Merv Griffin Show. <\/em>She went with an inconspicuous pale-blue gown. She was desperate to wear a new red dress, but she knew that red was Nancy\u2019s color and didn\u2019t want to upset her. Quigley hobnobbed with the editor of Newsweek, <\/em>the actress Cheryl Ladd, and various journalists and political types. Quigley introduced herself as a writer from California and evaded further questions. She stepped out of the way anytime she saw the flash of a camera\u2014for Nancy\u2019s sake, she wanted no photographic evidence of her presence. \u201cNancy quite obviously did not want to make a point of my being there,\u201d she later writes. She was seated at the same table as Vice President George H.\u2009W. Bush, whom she complimented for his debating skills. She ate seafood mousse and drank champagne.<\/p>\n

The next day, she finally had her long-awaited tea at the White House. Nancy and Quigley gossiped about the previous night. They laughed about George Shultz, the secretary of state, who had forced Cheryl Ladd to dance with him. \u201cHe loves to dance with all the pretty young glamour girls,\u201d Nancy said. They debated Bush\u2019s chances at the presidency; Quigley believed he was fated to win, and Nancy believed he was too weak to lead. They talked about Nancy\u2019s marriage, her horoscope, and her husband\u2019s place in history. Quigley told her about the museums and galleries she\u2019d visited in D.C.\u2014it was important to her that Nancy see her as educated and cultured, not as some grungy outsider with a sixth sense. When they said goodbye, Quigley thought, \u201cThis woman could chew someone up and swallow and spit up the bones and never feel a thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

Quigley expected a thank-you. Nancy had promised as much\u2014that one day, after they were out of office, Nancy would tell the world just how much Quigley had done for the Reagans and the country. Shortly after Don Regan published his memoir, in which he complained at length about the unchecked powers of an unnamed astrologer, someone within the administration leaked Quigley\u2019s name to the press. Nancy was frantic to discredit the story. It was Ruth, Joan\u2019s sister and roommate, who picked up Nancy\u2019s call.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis must never come out!\u201d Nancy said.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot while you\u2019re in office,\u201d Ruth replied. \u201cBut what about after you are out of office?\u201d She, too, hoped that her sister would receive her proper due.<\/p>\n

\u201cNever,\u201d Nancy said.<\/p>\n

In 1989, Nancy Reagan published her own memoir, My Turn, <\/em>in which she addressed Don Regan\u2019s allegations about her dependence on astrology. \u201cAstrology was simply one of the ways I coped with the fear I felt after my husband almost died,\u201d she writes. \u201cMy relationship with Joan began as a crutch, one of several ways I tried to alleviate my concern about Ronnie.\u201d<\/p>\n

Quigley was so offended by Nancy Reagan\u2019s dismissive portrayal of her that in 1990, she wrote a memoir of her own, What Does Joan Say? <\/em>The title is, purportedly, what the president would ask Nancy before scheduling an important event. In the book, Quigley describes how she assisted with important trade negotiations, assured the success of crucial public addresses, and helped keep the president safe. (\u201cRonald Reagan is the first president elected in a zero year to survive his terms of office since William Henry Harrison died after a month in office on April 4, 1841,\u201d she writes.)<\/p>\n

Quigley, who died in 2014, said she foresaw Nancy\u2019s betrayal. \u201cStruggle has been in my charts,\u201d she once told a reporter. She knew she could \u201cexpect no gratitude\u201d from the Reagans, and yet she said she did not foresee writing a memoir defending her place in history. Knowing in advance that the Reagans would hurt her made no difference. It hurt all the same.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Jessica Weisberg\u00a0is an award-winning writer and producer. Her writing has appeared in <\/em>The\u00a0<\/i>New Yorker,<\/em>\u00a0the\u00a0<\/i>New York Times,<\/em>\u00a0Harper\u2019s, and<\/em>\u00a0The Atavist, among other publications, and been nominated for a National Magazine Award. She was a producer on the podcast\u00a0<\/em>Serial\u00a0<\/i>and runs the features unit at\u00a0<\/em>Vice News Tonight\u00a0on HBO, for which she\u2019s been nominated for an Emmy. She lives in Brooklyn.<\/em><\/p>\n

Excerpted from<\/em> Asking for a Friend: Three Centuries of Advice on Life, Love, Money, and Other Burning Questions from a Nation Obsessed,<\/em> by Jessica Weisberg. Copyright \u00a9 2018. Available from Nation Books, an imprint of Perseus Books, LLC, a subsidiary of Hachette Book Group, Inc.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  \u201cVirtually every major move and decision the Reagans made during my time as White House Chief of Staff was cleared in advance with this woman in San Francisco who drew up horoscopes to make certain that the planets were in a favorable alignment for the enterprise,\u201d writes Don Regan, President Reagan\u2019s chief of staff, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1510,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[419],"tags":[12549,18243,34273,34281,6971,6849],"class_list":["post-125996","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arts-culture","tag-astrology","tag-horoscopes","tag-joan-quigley","tag-nancy-reagan","tag-ronald-reagan","tag-white-house"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nJoan Quigley, Ronald Reagan\u2019s Guide to the Stars by Jessica Weisberg<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"According to his chief 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