Nancy Reagan tried to cover up White House’s use of clairvoyant, documentary claims

“Life if you have to, just lie,” she reportedly told her spiritual adviser, after the public learned about their conversations

Nancy Reagan

Former first lady Nancy Reagan tried desperately to cover up the Ronald Reagan White House’s alleged use of a clairvoyant to advise political decisions, the Daily Mail reports, according to claims in a forthcoming documentary. 

“Lie if you have to, just lie,” the first lady told her astrologer Joan Quigley, according to the film, The Reagans which premieres on Showtime on Sunday. “You can’t say anything.”

Ms Reagan, who died in 2016, reportedly secretly consulted Ms Quigley on everything from Cold War negotiations to the timing of announcements, making sure it was done in proper alignment with the planets.

“Nancy Reagan relied on Joan Quigley, she would call her sometimes eight times a day for almost everything down to unbelievable details including the takeoff and landing times for Air Force One,” Nancy Reagan biographer Kitty Kelley reportedly says in the film. “That was astrology that charted their way. Nobody knew at the time."

The public caught wind of the White House’s cosmic advsier after Don Regan, a former chief of staff, published a 1988 memoir claiming the psychic advised “virtually every move and decision the Reagans made,” triggering a media feeding frenzy and alleged attempts from the first lady to cover it up.

Ms Quigley met the first lady through entertainer Merv Griffin, a client who sometimes featured Ms Quigley on his talk show. The first lady and Ms Quigley reportedly cemented their partnership, which reportedly say her get paid a $3000-per-month retainer, in 1981, after the clairvoyant said she could have predicted the assassination attempt against the president.

“Her astrology was a crutch,” fellow Nancy Reagan biographer Karen Tumulty reportedly says in the film. “Nancy didn't have religion to fall back on and Ronald Reagan had a very deep religious faith. He truly believed God had a plan for him.”

Her biggest claim to influence over the White House was in regards to the Cold War, where she reportedly spoke to Nancy Reagan for hours ahead of the 1986 Reykjavik summit, which helped led to denuclearization.

“I affected the relationship between the superpowers by my reading of Gorbachev's horoscope,” Ms Quigley said in an interview before her death in 2014.