This is the third installment in our series of profiles of people with Venus retrograde in Gemini. While I’m not sure I’ve picked up a clear common thread yet, so far these charts have all been remarkable (here are the first and second). This week’s case study is Julie Nixon-Eisenhower. I’m going to try to limit the aspects I cover since there’s a lot going on, but you’re encouraged to investigate her chart (small version below) to see what else is there.
Julie is the younger daughter of 37th U.S. president Richard Nixon and his wife Pat. Shortly after her father was elected, she married David Eisenhower, grandson of former president Dwight D. Eisenhower. Julie was an active spokesperson for the White House on children’s issues, the environment and the elderly – and from 1973-75 served as Assistant Managing Editor of the Saturday Evening Post. During this time, she wrote a book of photographs of her father (she has continued to write books throughout her life).
Then the proverbial shit hit the fan: the Watergate scandal. This is when Julie’s role in public life got highly focused, as she traveled across the country giving 138 interviews in 1973 defending her father’s refutation of the Watergate accusations. Julie’s involvement as her father’s political partner eclipsed that of her mother’s, to the point that journalist Nora Ephron remarked on Pat’s relative silence, “In the months since the Watergate hearings began, she [Julie] has become her father’s … First Lady in practice if not in fact.”
All of the public speaking and writing (and the sense of dual relationship – to father and to husband) make immediate sense when we look at Julie’s Venus placement. It is in Gemini, in her 1st house, in a snug group conjunction with the Moon, Uranus and Mercury. Having Mercury in Gemini as the rising sign pretty much assures that she was going to be expressing her soul journey through written and spoken language in some kind of double capacity. Mercury also lends an affinity for children; add Venus, and you get maturity. Uranus gives the situation extra wattage and ensures plenty of surprises – I think the Watergate scandal qualifies, even though Julie was not directly involved. Uranus launched her from White House tour guide for kids into the role of high-level spokesperson.