Richard Nixon v JFK at the 1960 Presidential election—an astrologer’s prediction

In the December 1959 issue of the British magazine Prediction is a remarkable attempt by an astrologer named Katina Theodossiou to predict the political careers of the two contenders for the imminent 1960 Presidential election.

Kennedy

By temperament he will be a pacifist, not a war-monger; but he would not be inclined to veto armaments, nuclear or otherwise, because of this. He has a very realistic streak blended with his well-publicized religious principles. Mr Kennedy will believe that the best way to assure peace is to remain strong.

His capacity for compromise (a Libran trait) would lie in his responding, within limits, to any concessions made by the Communist bloc, but he would not go the whole hog, nor would he initiate concessions…For all his instinctive adaptability, Mr Kennedy’s shrewdness would come badly off if any sudden crisis were precipitated upon him. Taken unawares, he would react over-hastily; the façade of strength, of imperturbability, would disintegrate; his decisions under such strain would tend to rashness…

Nixon

…He is a true son of Saturn, who has come up the hard way; which has made him a tough proposition to deal with. Don’t attach too much importance to the impression he made on TV . No Capricornian is ever at ease before the relentless public gaze, even if many manage to hide this. First and foremost, Nixon is a realist. He would be capable of idealism ( as indicated by his Moon in Aquarius, in trine to Pluto), but he would subordinate it to harsh reality. His experience of life will have done nothing to soften this attribute in is make-up. He is ambitious, tenacious (Capricorn-Saturn), industrious, and has a sincere desire to serve his fellow men(Virgo/Capricorn blend; Moon/Pluto trine).He will appeal to that section of his countrymen who are hard-headed businessmen ; he could disappoint those who do not put material considerations as a primary necessity.

In matters of foreign policy, the position of his 9th-house Saturn, allied to the opposition of Pluto to Mars and Jupiter, and taking also into consideration the inharmonious  aspects of Neptune with the Sun, suggest that  Nixon would lack breadth of vision and clarity of judgement. For Jupiter and Neptune are co-rulers of the 7th house ( which, with the 9th, involves both foreign relationships and relationships with international partners). True, Venus is in Exaltation in the sign ruling the 7th -house Pisces, but it quadrates Saturn and is semi-square Sun. Mr Nixon is a politician, but it is improbable that he could become a statesman in the broadest sense of the word. He is certainly not a diplomat.

Both men

It is doubtful, therefore, whether either man would have an enduring beneficial influence on his country’s fortunes. Both are fated to suffer public eclipse, though for one it will come sooner than for the other. It is clear that whichever man comes to the White House, during his term of Presidency the USA will pass through a troubled phase, at home and abroad.

Mr Kennedy faces a critical juncture in his public career during his early to middle fifties; this is when the tide will ebb for him.

Mr Nixon, true to his Saturnian signature, will reach the peak of his powers comparatively late in life—from his middle to late fifties, onwards into his sixties. Even so, it is doubtful whether he would maintain that peak of success indefinitely.

This is pretty impressive stuff, although Kennedy never reached his fifties, having been assassinated at the age of 46, though no astrologer could have predicted that. The foretelling of Nixon’s foreign policy success in his late fifties to his sixties is spot on. During his Presidency, he negotiated a valuable treaty with China, despite not being a ‘diplomat’, and he ended the Vietnam War, which being a ‘realist’ he knew could not be won by the USA. The warning that Kennedy might react rashly in a crisis was happily not borne out in 1962, when the world teetered on the edge of a Third World War However, it could be argued that the war against the Viet Cong, which escalated under his Presidency, proved that he was a ‘ warmonger ‘, rather than a ‘ pacifist’. [RR]

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