1988 REPUBLICAN NATIONAL CONVENTION : First Lady Sought ‘Safety’ in the Stars

First Lady Nancy Reagan said Monday she consulted an astrologer on President Reagan’s travel schedule because she was “obsessed with his safety” after he was shot in March, 1981.

It was “a terrible trauma” when her husband was shot, “and you’re in shock much longer than you know you’re in shock,” Mrs. Reagan said in a CBS News interview. “And you reach out anywhere for comfort.”

Mrs. Reagan was first reported to have consulted an astrologer on her husband’s schedule in a book by former White House Chief of Staff Donald T. Regan. The White House later confirmed it.

Interviewed during CBS’ convention coverage, Mrs. Reagan told anchorman Dan Rather that some months after the attack on her husband she heard about a woman who had said she would have warned against his public appearance that day.

“And I said: ‘Oh, gee, did she really?’ And I was so obsessed with his safety, that anytime he went out of the house, I think my heart stopped,” Mrs. Reagan said. “So all I would do, would be to ask her: ‘Is, is this . . . would he be all right? Is it better for him to go to Chicago on Wednesday or Tuesday?’ ”