In his memoir, For the Record, former White House Chief of Staff Donald T. Regan wastes no time before dropping his biggest bombshell. "Because actions that would otherwise bewilder the reader cannot be understood in its absence," writes Regan in a foreword, "I have revealed in this book what was probably the most closely guarded domestic secret of the Reagan White House."
The secret: First Lady Nancy Reagan's reliance on a San Francisco astrologer to determine the timing of the President's every public move. This was more than a charming eccentricity shared with the 50 million or so other Americans who, casually or in dead earnest, look to the alignment of the stars for guidance. As White House chief of staff for two years, before he was forced to resign in February 1987, Regan was in a position to see how the First Lady's faith in the astrologer's pronouncements wreaked havoc with her husband's schedule. At times, he writes, the most powerful man on earth was a virtual prisoner in the White House.
Donald Regan never knew the name of the "Friend," as Nancy Reagan referred to her astrologer. But TIME learned last week that she is Nob Hill Socialite Joan Quigley, sixtyish, a Vassar graduate who has written three books on astrology (see story on page 41).
As the sensational tip of Regan's revelatory iceberg broke into the headlines last week, it evoked titillation among Washington insiders and an angry response from Ronald Reagan. "I would have preferred it if he decided to attack me," he said on Friday. "From what I hear, he's chosen to attack my wife, and I don't look kindly on that at all."
Nor is he likely to look kindly on his former aide's portrayal of the Reagan White House. Regan shows the President as immensely likable but disturbingly passive and vulnerable to manipulation. And he paints a surprisingly dark, meanspirited First Lady, whose meddling became the "random factor in the Reagan presidency." Regan, who served the Administration for six years, the first four as Secretary of the Treasury, details how Nancy, and not her husband, stage-managed his ouster. His profile of her in For the Record, which Harcourt Brace Jovanovich is publishing this month and TIME is excerpting in the following pages, constitutes Exhibit 1 in the defense of Donald T. Regan.
Nancy Reagan has long been known for her shrewdness and her readiness to step in when she believes others are "taking advantage of Ronnie." For the most part, she has used humor and self-deprecation to parry charges that she was interfering unduly in affairs of state. "This morning I had planned to clear up U.S.-Soviet differences on intermediate-range nuclear missiles," she told a publishers' luncheon in New York City last year. "But I decided to clean out Ronnie's sock drawer instead."
The First Lady dabbled in astrology as far back as 1967. In 1981 Quigley made Nancy a believer by showing how the astrologer's charts could have foretold that the period on or around March 30, 1981, would be extremely dangerous for the President. On that day a bullet from John Hinckley Jr.'s handgun gravely wounded the President. From then on, Nancy, obsessed with her husband's safety, was convinced of her Friend's power to protect him. And from then on, no presidential public appearance was slated without the Friend's say-so.