Astrology: President Takes Nonalignment Path

WASHINGTON —  An old Hollywood star, whose wife believes that the alignment of the sun, moon and stars affects people’s lives, stood on a White House stage Tuesday and said that he does not know whether he believes it himself or not.

“I don’t mean to offend anyone who does believe in” astrology, President Reagan told reporters in the White House pressroom, a week after his former chief of staff, Donald T. Regan, charged that much of his schedule had been steered by the First Lady’s astrologer friend.

“Do you believe in it?” the President was asked.

“I’ve not tied my life by it,” he replied, “but I won’t answer the question the other way because I don’t know enough about it” to say if there is something to it or not.

Denied Impact on Decisions

Previously, Reagan denied that any policy decision he made had been influenced by astrological advice. But he did not address allegations that astrology had affected the timing of his inauguration as governor of California in 1967 or the signing of a missile-reduction treaty with the Soviets last December.

The President denied on Tuesday that the Zodiac had anything to do with his being sworn in as governor at a minute past midnight. He said the whole idea was to prevent outgoing Gov. Edmund G. (Pat) Brown from making last-ditch appointments before the normal midday time of a swearing-in. In the past, legal experts have challenged that explanation, saying there would have been no legal foundation for such appointments.

Reagan also denied a published report that the missile treaty had been signed at 1:30 p.m. last Dec. 8 at the insistence of Mrs. Reagan after consultation with her astrologer, San Francisco socialite Joan Quigley.

“Nothing of that kind was going on,” he said, calling the report in the Philadelphia Inquirer “smoke and mirrors.”

‘All Signs Were Bad’

The President did say that, after he was wounded by a gunman outside a Washington hotel in March, 1981, Mrs. Reagan was called by a friend who “said that he wished that he’d known what I was going to do that day . . . all the signs were bad.”

The shooting was “traumatic” for his wife, Reagan said, and so for “a short period” she consulted an astrologer any time the President was booked for a similar appearance.

“She would ask what does it look like now?” he said.

Regan contends in his new book, “For the Record,” that the President’s horoscope had a far more pervasive influence on his schedule--for example, putting numerous dates off-limits for activity from January through April last year.