page_title: Nancy Reagan
section_title: Astrological consultations
hierarchical_section_title: Nancy Reagan / First Lady of the United States / Astrological consultations
caption_attribution_description: President and Mrs. Reagan talk in the Oval Office.
context_page_description: Nancy Davis Reagan was an American film actress and the second wife of Ronald Reagan, the 40th president of the United States. She was the first lady of the United States from 1981 to 1989.
  She was born in New York City. After her parents separated, she lived in Maryland with an aunt and uncle for six years. When her mother remarried in 1929, she moved to Chicago and later was adopted by her mother's second husband. As Nancy Davis, she was a Hollywood actress in the 1940s and 1950s, starring in films such as The Next Voice You Hear..., Night into Morning, and Donovan's Brain. In 1952, she married Ronald Reagan, who was then president of the Screen Actors Guild. They had two children together. Reagan was the first lady of California when her husband was governor from 1967 to 1975, and she began to work with the Foster Grandparents Program.
  Reagan became First Lady of the United States in January 1981, following her husband's victory in the 1980 presidential election. Early in his first term, she was criticized largely due to her decision to replace the White House china, which had been paid for by private donations.
context_section_description: During the Reagan administration, Nancy Reagan consulted a San Francisco astrologer, Joan Quigley, who provided advice on which days and times would be optimal for the president's safety and success. White House Chief of Staff Donald Regan grew frustrated with this regimen, which created friction between him and the first lady. This friction escalated with the revelation of the Iran–Contra affair, an administration scandal, in which the first lady felt Regan was damaging the president. She thought he should resign, and expressed this to her husband, although he did not share her view. Regan wanted President Reagan to address the Iran-Contra matter in early 1987 by means of a press conference, though the first lady refused to allow her husband to overexert himself due to a recent prostate surgery and astrological warnings. She became so angry with Regan that he hung up on her during a 1987 telephone conversation. According to the recollections of ABC News correspondent Sam Donaldson, when the President heard of this treatment, he demanded—and eventually received—Regan's resignation. Vice President George H. W. Bush is also reported to have suggested to her to have Regan fired.
  In his 1988 memoir, For the Record: From Wall Street to Washington, Regan wrote the following about Nancy Reagan's consultations with an astrologer:
  Virtually every major move and decision the Reagans made during my time as White House Chief of Staff was cleared in advance with a woman in San Francisco [Quigley] who drew up horoscopes to make certain that the planets were in a favorable alignment for the enterprise.
  Regan further claimed that Quigley selected the date of the 1985 Geneva Summit. For her part, Quigley stated in 1998 that she had "'absolutely nothing'" to do with arranging the summit and added that others were "'overemphasizing'" her role; however, in 1990, she released a book in which she asserted that she was "in charge" of the President's scheduling during the Reagan administration.
  Reagan acknowledged in her memoirs that she altered the President's schedule without his knowledge based on astrological advice, but argues that "no political decision was ever based [on astrology]". She added, "Astrology was simply one of the ways I coped with the fear I felt after my husband almost died ... Was astrology one of the reasons [further attempts did not occur]? I don't really believe it was, but I don't really believe it wasn't."
caption: Nancy and Ronald Reagan together in the Oval Office, 1985
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