Richard Nixon

Richard Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, and the only one to resign the office. His record is genuinely divided. On one side sit real achievements: the opening of relations with China in 1972, detente and the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with the Soviet Union, the winding down of American involvement in Vietnam, the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency and the Apollo 11 landing during his term. On the other sits the Watergate scandal, in which he and senior aides weaponised the machinery of government against political enemies and then conspired to cover it up. That criminality, not the achievements, is why he left office in disgrace in 1974.

Astrologically his Sun in Capricorn fits the Saturn-ruled climber: disciplined, career-organised, driven up the ladder by ambition and duty, reserved to the point of coldness. It sat in the fifth house of self-projection and risk. His Moon in Aquarius, detached and mission-minded, and a Virgo Ascendant given to control and mistrust, describe a guarded, calculating temperament. A chart, however, only sketches disposition. It never authors a choice. The surveillance, the enemies lists and the cover-up were decisions Nixon made, and no natal signature excuses them.