In December, 1916, a group of outraged aristocrats, led by Prince Felix Yusspov, one of the wealthiest men in Russia, decided to take action.

They would murder Grigori Rasputin and–they believed–save the Czar from his corrupting influence.

On the night of December 29, 1916, Yusspov lured Rasputin to his estate on the pretext of meeting his lovely wife, Irina.

While Rasputin waited eagerly to meet the princess, Yusspov plied him with cakes and glasses of wine–all poisoned with potassium cyanide.  When these had no effect, Yusspov drew a revolver and shot him in the back.

Shortly afterward, Rasputin, with superhuman strength, tried to escape from the palace.  The rest of the assassins shot him several more times, wrapped his body in chains, and dumped it into an icy river.

The conspirators were hailed as heroes by the outraged aristocracy.  They believed that Rasputin’s death would ensure the salvation of the monarchy.

But it didn’t.  The notoriety of Rasputin’s life had by now fully attached itself to Nicholas and Alexandra.

In February, 1917, food riots broke out in St. Petersburg, and the Czar was forced to abdicate.   On July 17, 1916, he and his family–including Alexandra, their four daughters and Alexei–were executed by the Bolsheviks.

Click here: Nicholas and Alexandra: Robert K. Massie: 9780345438317: Amazon.com: Books

But Nicholas II was not the only world leader who placed his faith in the supernatural.

A modern-day example of this was Ronald Reagan, the 40th President of the United States from 1981 to 1989.

Ronald Reagan

Nancy Reagan met an astrologer named Joan Quigley on “The Merv Griffin Show” in 1973.

Quigley supposedly 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 that November by Jimmy Carter.

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.  Hinckley’s motive: Fixiated on actress Jodie Foster, he believed that by shooting the President he could gain her affection.

For Nancy, the assassination attempt proved a watershed.

Shortly after the shooting, Merv Griffin told her 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 made sure to regularly consult Quigley on virtually everything that she and the President intended to do.

Click here: The President’s Astrologers – Joan Quigley, Nancy Reagan, Politicians and Their Families, Ronald Reagan : People.c

Many–if not most–of these calls from the White House to Quigley’s office in San Francisco were made on non-secure phone lines.

Joan Quigley

This meant that foreign powers–most notably the Soviet Union and Communist China–could have been privy to Reagan’s intentions.

Nancy passed on Quigley’s suggestions in the form of 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 was used to highlight “good” days, red for “bad” days, and yellow for “iffy” days.

A list provided by Quigley to Nancy made the following recommendations–which Nancy, in turn, made into commands:

Late Dec thru March    bad
Jan 16 – 23    very bad
Jan 20    nothing outside WH–possible attempt
Feb 20 – 26    be careful
March 7 – 14    bad period
March 10 – 14    no outside activity!
March 16    very bad
March 21    no
March 27    no
March 12 – 19    no trips exposure
March 19 – 25    no public exposure
April 3    careful
April 11    careful
April 17    careful
April 21 – 28    stay home

Donald Regan, no fan of Nancy’s, chafed under such restrictions: “Obviously, this list of dangerous or forbidden dates left very little lattitude 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.

The book revealed, for the first time, how Ronald Reagan 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.

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

Click here: What Does Joan Say?: My Seven Years As White House Astrologer to Nancy and Ronald Reagan: Joan Quigley

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.

Among the success Quigley took credit for:

• Strategies for winning the Presidential elections of 1980 and 1984;
• 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; and
• Moving from seeing the Soviet Union as the “Evil Empire” to accepting Mikhail Gorbachev as a peace-seeking leader.

Thirty-three years after he became President, Ronald Reagan remains the most popular figure among Republicans.

His name is constantly invoked by Right-wing candidates, while his deliberately-crafted myth is held up as the example of Presidential greatness.

Most people–especially Americans–like to believe they choose rational men and women for their political leaders.

This is especially true when it comes to deciding who will govern the country for the next four years as President of the United States.

And those voters like to believe that, once elected, the new President will base his or her decisions on a firm foundation of rationality and careful consideration.

Unfortunately, this isn’t always true.

And in an age when a Presidential decision can, in a matter of minutes, hurl nuclear bombers and missiles to lay waste entire nations, it’s essential for Americans to realize this.

Of course, Americans have no monopoly on leaders who rule by irrationality.

The classic foreign-affairs version of this is that of Nicholas 11, Czar of All the Russias, his wife, the Czarina Alexandra, and the “mad monk” from Siberia, Grigori Rasputin.

Rasputin arrived in St. Petersburg, Russia, in 1905.  Founded by Czar Peter the Great in 1703, it was then the capitol of Russia–and the center of Russian cultural life.

(When Russia entered World War 1 against Germany in 1914, the Imperial government renamed the city Petrograd, meaning “Peter’s City”, to remove the German words “saint” and “burg.”

(After the Bolsheviks came to power in 1917, they renamed it Leningrad in honor of Vladimir Lenin, the first Communist dictator.  After the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the city reclaimed its original name: St. Petersburg.)

Rasputin carried with him the auroa of a holy man and a healer.  A woman friend of the Empress made his fateful introduction to the royal family in late 1095. 

It was Rasputin’s claim to be a healer that cemented his relationship with the Czar and Czarina–and especially the latter.

For Nicholas and Alexandra lived with a frightening secret–one known to only a handful of trusted doctors: Their only son, Alexei–next in line to the throne when his father died–was a hemophiliac.

Nicholas 11 and Alexandra

A disease inherited on the mother’s side, hemophilia prevents the blood from clotting normally.  A slight cut can result in massive–and fatal–bleeding.  Even a slight bruise cause internal bleeding.

Doctors had told the Czar there was nothing they could do to cure his young son.  If an accident happened, all that could be done was to await the outcome.

Alexei

So when Nicholas and Alexandra learned of Rasputin’s supposed reputation as a healer, they dared to hope that a miracle might be possible for their son.

And on several occasions, Rasputin seemed to deliver on his reputation–and claims–of being able to work miracles in God’s name.

One such instance occurred in October, 1912.  Alexei, riding in a train carriage, received an unexpected jolt, and began bleeding internally.

His condition became steadily worse.  He was given the last rites, and Russians were informed that the Czarevich was ill and needed their prayers to recover.  No mention of hemophilia was made.

Finally, Alexandra sent word–via telegram–of the situation to Rasputin, who was then in Siberia.  He promptly sent back a telegram: “The Little One will not die.  Do not allow the doctors to bother him too much.”

From that moment, Alexei underwent a steady recovery.

For Rasputin–and the royal family–it was a fateful moment.

Rasputin had been exiled to Siberia because the Czar was outraged by his notorious womanizing.  Drunk on his newfound celebrity at court, Rasputin had found himself sought out by scores of women.

Grigori Rasputin

They came in all ages and comprised both rich and poor.  For jaded aristocratic women, going to bed with a semi-literate peasant was a novel and deliciously carnal experience.

And Rasputin, who claimed to be a holy man, had a ready formula for relieving the guilt so many women felt after such encounters.

Rasputin preached a gospel that one could not truly repent until one had committed sin.  So first came the sinning, and then the repenting–and this, in turn, brought the sinner closer to God.

But Rasputin’s outrageous reputation made the Czar a target for scandal.  Gossips even whispered that Rasputin and the Czarina were lovers.

So, in 1912, Nicholas had sent Rasputin packing back to Siberia.

But with his apparent healing of Alexei, Czarina Alexandra demanded that he be returned to the nation’s capitol.

For her, Rasputin offered the only promise of hope for her constantly endangered son.

With Rasputin’s return, the rumors–increasingly uttered in public–started up again.

In 1914, Russia was drawn into World War 1 against Imperial Germany.  The Russian army–poorly equipped and trained–suffered a series of disastrous reverses early on.

The Czar decided to take personal command of the war effort–which meant spending most of his time at the front.

This, in turn, left the Czarina, Alexandra, behind in St. Petersburg, to essentially run the country.  And at her side, “guiding” her decisions, was the semi-literate peasant, Grigori Rasputin.

Rasputin, in turn, was the subject of countless and scandalous affairs–with wives, daughters, aristocrats and chambermaids.

Enemies of Nicholas II–including the Communistic Bolsheviks–relished the scandals as a way to attack the Czar through one of his intimates.

Finally, a group of outraged aristocrats, led by Prince Felix Yusspov, one of the wealthiest men in Russia, decided to “save” the Czar–by murdering Rasputin.