On July 6, FBI Director James Comey recommended that the Justice Department not prosecute Hillary Clinton for using a private email server during her tenure as Secretary of State.  

Almost immediately afterward, Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for President, responded on Twitter: “FBI director said Crooked Hillary compromised our national security. No charges. Wow! #RiggedSystem.”  

Paul Ryan, the Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives, claimed to be similarly outraged: “Declining to prosecute Secretary Clinton for recklessly mishandling and transmitting national security information will set a terrible precedent.”

“What Director Comey’s statements made clear was that Hillary Clinton’s decision to use a personal unsecured server to send work-related emails while service as Secretary of State—including classified information—was extremely irresponsible,” said House Republican Majority leader Kevin McCarthy.  

But 28 years ago, Republicans maintained a tight-lipped silence on another matter involving sensitive national security secrets. That was when news broke that Nancy Reagan, as First Lady, had shared these with a court astrologer.  

When President Ronald Reagan wanted advice on whether to nuke the Soviet Union or meet with its leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, his most important adviser wasn’t the CIA or Pentagon.

It was Joan Quigley, a San Francisco-based astrologer.

Ronald and Nancy Reagan

Nancy had met Quigley on “The Merve Griffin Show” in 1973.  Quigley gave Nancy–and through her, Reagan himself—astrological advice during the latter’s campaign for the Republican Presidential nomination in 1976.

That effort failed to unseat President Gerald Ford–who was defeated by Jimmy Carter. But four years later, in 1980, Reagan defeated Carter to become the 40th President of the United States.

On March 30, 1981, a mentally-disturbed loner named John W. Hinckley shot and critically wounded Reagan. Fixated on actress Jodie Foster, he believed that by shooting the President he could gain her affection.

Shortly after the shooting, Merv Griffin told Nancy that Quigley had told him: If Nancy had called her on that fateful day, she–Quigley–could have warned that the President’s astrological charts had foretold a bad day.

From that moment on, Nancy regularly consulted Quigley on virtually everything that she and the President intended to do.

When Reagan learned of Nancy’s consultations with Quigley, he warned her: Be careful, because it might look odd if it came out.

Nancy may have been speaking on a scrambler-equipped phone. But Quigley–at her San Francisco office–was on an unsecured line. Thus, foreign powers–most notably the Soviet Union and Communist China–could have been privy to President Reagan’s most secret intentions.

Joan Quigley

Nancy passed on Quigley’s suggestions as commands to Donald Regan, chief of the White House staff.

As a result, Regan kept a color-coded calendar on his desk to remember when the astrological signs were good for the President to speak, travel, or negotiate with foreign leaders: Green ink highlighted “good” days; red ink “bad” days; yellow ink “iffy” days.

Donald Regan, no fan of Nancy’s, chafed under such restrictions: “Obviously, this list of dangerous or forbidden dates left very little latitude for scheduling,” he later wrote.

Forced out of the White House in 1987 by Nancy, Regan struck back in a 1988 tell-all memoir: For the Record: From Wall Street to Washington.

Regan’s book revealed, for the first time, how Ronald Reagan had actually made his Presidential decisions.  

All–including decisions to risk nuclear war with the Soviet Union–were based on a court astrologer’s horoscopes. Rationality and the best military intelligence available played a lesser, secondary role.

The last major world leader to turn to the supernatural for advice had been Russian Czar Nicholas II. His adviser had been Grigori Rasputin, a Siberian peasant whom Empress Alexandra believed was the only man who could save her hemophiliac son–and heir to the throne.

Grigori Rasputin

In 1990, Quigley confirmed the allegations in an autobiography, What Does Joan Say?: My Seven Years As White House Astrologer to Nancy and Ronald Reagan.

The title came from the question that Ronald Reagan asked Nancy before making important decisions–including those that could risk the destruction of the United States. 

Bragged Quigley: “Not since the days of the Roman emperors–and never in the history of the United States Presidency—has an astrologer played such a significant role in the nation’s affairs of State.”

Among the successes Quigley took credit for: 

• Strategies for winning the Presidential elections of 1980 and 1984;
• Helping Nancy Reagan overhaul her image as a spoiled rich girl;
• Defusing the controversy over Reagan’s visiting a graveyard for SS soldiers in Bitburg, Germany;
• Pursuing “Star Wars” as a major part of his strategy against the Soviet Union;
• The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty;
• Protecting Reagan from would-be assassins through timely warnings to Nancy; and
• Moving Reagan from seeing the Soviet Union as the “Evil Empire” to accepting Mikhail Gorbachev as a peace-seeking leader.

Thirty-five years after he became President, Ronald Reagan remains the most popular figure among Republicans. His deliberately-crafted myth is held up as the example of Presidential greatness by Right-wing candidates.  

Curiously, however, none of them mention his approach to government-by-astrologer.