JFK

John F. Kennedy shone through the sign of "between." His Sun sat in Gemini, the marriage of Helios and Mercury, the messenger, the eternal twin who is always two persons in one. That is the source of the famous Kennedy quickness: the wit, the charm, the gift for pitching an idea to a whole nation. It is no accident that the first televised presidential debates in history turned his way, or that his words still travel; Gemini is the sign of the communicator, always understanding both sides of an argument. His Sun fell in the eighth house, the Scorpionic realm of death, rebirth and survival, and true to that phoenix stage he lived through the sinking of PT-109, chronic illness held privately, and finally an assassination in Dallas in 1963 that fixed him forever in myth.

His Moon in Virgo found comfort in being useful and meticulous, a service-minded psyche that produced the Pulitzer-winning Profiles in Courage and the New Frontier. Placed in the eleventh house of friends, community and highest wishes, that Moon rose and fell with the masses; he was a man of the crowd, of the Peace Corps, of the reach for the Moon itself. His Libra Ascendant wore the Venusian mask of balance and grace, the youngest elected president, and the most photogenic.