Page "Nancy Reagan" Paragraph 48

The White House Chief of Staff, Donald Regan, grew frustrated with this regimen, which created friction between him and the First Lady.

This escalated with the revelation of the Iran-Contra affair, an administration scandal, in which the First Lady felt Regan was damaging the president.

She thought he should resign, and expressed this to her husband although he did not share her view.

Regan wanted President Reagan to address the Iran-Contra matter in early 1987 by means of a press conference, though Nancy refused to allow Reagan to overexert himself due to a recent prostate surgery and astrological warnings.

Regan became so angry with Nancy that he hung up on her during a 1987 telephone conversation.

According to former ABC News correspondent Sam Donaldson, when the President heard of this treatment, he demanded — and eventually received — Regan's resignation.

In his 1988 memoirs, Regan wrote about Nancy's consultations with the astrologer, the first public mention of them, which resulted in embarrassment for the First Lady.

Nancy later wrote, " Astrology was simply one of the ways I coped with the fear I felt after my husband almost died ... Was astrology one of the reasons attempts did not occur?

I don't really believe it was, but I don't really believe it wasn't.