I decided to study the charts of the Kennedys and Lee Harvey Oswald because, like so many others, I was seduced from a young age by the glamour of the Kennedys and the tragedies which befell them. As I grew older I took more of an interest in the different conspiracy theories surrounding the assassination of John Kennedy. I’m not expecting this evening’s talk to offer any new solutions to the various theories but hopefully it will provide a deeper insight into the people at the epicenter of the events of that day.

So, in keeping with my Virgo ascendant I hope this talk will have an ordered, systematic approach. I think to start with we’ll have a look at the chart of John F Kennedy. I would say that the most striking element in his chart is the 5 planets in his 8^th house. Of these 5 planets, 4 are personal and I don’t think you could find a more apt placing for someone who was profoundly linked to the characteristics of sex, money and death which this house portrays.

The influence of his father in his life cannot be over-emphasised and, in his chart, the sun in the 8^th is the indicator of his father. There he is linked with money, i.e. the empire that Joe Kennedy had created and which provided John Kennedy with financial security. Also the link between his father and sex was strong. His father was an open womanizer – he frequently brought mistresses into the family home and his sons’ girlfriends were advised to lock their bedroom doors if they were staying with the Kennedys.

His mother can be seen in his chart as the moon in Virgo in the 11^th house. The sign of Virgo can at times be an uncomfortable place for the moon to sit as the emotional aspects of the moon can come in to conflict with the analytical and exacting order of Virgo. His mother became increasingly detached, emotionally and physically, from the family as the children grew up. Her devout Catholicism, her frequent trips abroad (for example, 17 times in 6 years) and her increasing withdrawal from the family was felt deeply by the children. John Kennedy cried every time his mother left but she found the emotional outpourings from her children too difficult to handle and it had the affect of making her withdraw even further from the family. Having Uranus in Aquarius in the 4^th house, I think, is a significator of the somewhat erratic behaviour of his mother and, on a wider level, the unconventional, disrupted family life they led. To summarise, within the family you had his father who could be affectionate and outgoing yet no one questioned his absolute rule in the household. Also there was his mother who, has had been said, was devoutly religious and yet who had to tolerate her husbands open womanizing. Added to this they had competitiveness between the children which was actively encouraged by their father. He had instilled in them the belief that the most important thing in life was to win at all costs and that no one cared for losers. As a member of the nouveau riche his father had found it difficult to be accepted into American society, despite all the wealth which he had accumulated, and his "win at all cost" message may have stemmed from feelings of inferiority.

The atmosphere in which John Kennedy grew up gave him a distorted view of marriage, which he saw as a controlled institution and family life, which he resembled to living in a cellblock. When looking at the chart, the 4^th and 8^th houses are not only indicative of John Kennedys experiences of home life but they also show the ways in which this affected his own personal life as he got older. Briefly, we have mars in the 8^th, which can view sex as a contest in which mars always wants to be the victor. This combined with the conjunction with Jupiter can provide an excessive sexual appetite. Finally, Venus in the 8^th can make other people open and receptive to you and can also indicate that the individual will enjoy a lot of sexual partners. This is obviously a very potent combination of planets which can prove quite dangerous if the energies are not acknowledged and controlled.

He experienced the loss of his eldest brother in 1944 and his eldest sister in 1949 who were both killed in plane crashes. This changed his position in the family and it was this that would ultimately lead to his father persuading him to enter politics. An interesting point regarding his sister is that she had been involved with a divorced man who had been brought up in the Protestant faith. They were both killed in the crash and her mother, because of her daughter’s involvement with this man, refused to attend her funeral. Up until the death of Joe Junior in 1944 it had been he who had been groomed to enter the political arena. I have a quote here from John Kennedy’s father in 1957. He says: "I got Jack into politics. He didn’t want to. He felt he didn’t have the ability and he still feels that way. But I told him he had to." I think that this is one of the most telling pieces of evidence which point to the influence his father brought to bear on John Kennedy’s life.

One of the most abiding factors, which dominated his life, was his frequent bouts of ill-health. Chiron in his 6^th house in Pisces indicates his experiences of intense discomfort from a variety of illnesses including an unstable back, asthma and malaria. The fragilities of his body caused him great pain and on 2 occasions illness almost cost of him his life. However, he was able to use the time when he was bed-ridden to expand his knowledge and he became a voracious reader. Another aspect of Chiron in Pisces could be an indicator of the emotional pain which he had suffered as a child and which seemed to manifest itself as an inability to empathise with others and a lack of sensitivity which I’ll refer back to later.

In 1952 with Pluto squaring his natal Venus (his chart ruler) and opposing his natal Uranus he met Jackie Bouvier. This can indicate a time of significant changes in personal relationships – in this case he met the woman he would marry. It can bring intensity to relationships which may not always be beneficial as it can also bring obsession. Their marriage was seen by both families to be beneficial. Her family had been wealthy although they had fallen on comparatively hard times and the Kennedys brought them money. To his family the Bouviers brought social standing and acceptance. It did not however stop his many affairs and liaison and, in this respect, his life mirrored his fathers. When Jackie was 8 months pregnant with their first child he visited his father in France and spent time with friends. He received word that she had under gone an emergency cesarean and had given birth to a stillborn child and that she was in a critical condition. He only agreed to return home 3 days later after being reminded that a failed marriage would harm his political career. In this example, and in many others involving members of his staff, he could be extremely insensitive and yet they were viciously loyal to him. I think that the two major factors in his chart to indicate the loyalty and deification he inspired are his moon in the 11^th and his Neptune Saturn conjunction in the 10^th. Also conjunct his Saturn is his sun/moon midpoint. The natal moon in the 11^th shows that he could be many things to many people. It is well documented that he did not have any firm standpoints on major ideological questions which had the effect of people perceiving him to be "on their side". He could also be impressionable and had to be careful with his choice of friends, although he rarely was. Saturn in the 10^th creates an image of strength and solidity which he showed to good advantage through the media. However Neptune provided the glamour and illusion which so many people crave thereby selling himself more than his views. He seemed able to capture the mood of the collective and personify it. But once you look behind the illusion of Neptune, Neptune can also bring deception – all that the public saw was not necessarily true.

There is a danger too that you start to believe your own hype and this can be seen in his abruptly severing his ties with Frank Sinatra and any Mafia connections although it would appear that their influence in certain states swung the presidential election his way. The connections and friendships which he had previously needed in his political life became an embarrassment for him and once he became president he authorized an extremely high-profile war against organized crime.

The chart for his inauguration on the 20^th January 1961 is very tense with Saturn and Jupiter playing starring roles conjunct his IC at 21 and 18 degrees Capricorn respectively. These 2 planets oppose and square the angles in his natal chart and are symbolic in showing that from now on duty and responsibility, combined with new opportunities would be the way forward for him. The key would be to try to balance the two in his new role. Other significant transits were Uranus opposing natal Uranus and Pluto square natal sun although obviously both of these transits were slow moving and would therefore be having long-term effects.

In his personal life the opposition of Uranus to his natal Uranus was manifesting in his relationship with his wife and children. He became actively involved in family life and really started to connect emotionally with his wife and children. Indeed when she lost another child he was quick to be with her in hospital and showed real empathy and less self-absorption. It is interesting to speculate as to how his presidency would have developed if he hadn’t died in 1963 as he was certainly beginning a new phase in his personal life.

Next, I’ll move on to Jackie Kennedy’s chart, a woman who had as turbulent an upbringing as did her future husband. Her mother, Janet, was a tenacious and driven woman from an Irish family who climbed her way up the social ladder and eventually married a wealthy man in Black Jack Bouvier. In her chart, the sun in Leo shows Jackie’s father. She adored her father and he appears to have been an incredibly charismatic man but one who liked to live dangerously. He was an alcoholic and a womanizer but as is often the case, Jackie and her sister failed to see his faults. The family split in 1936 after bitter fighting between the parents over his philandering. The instability of her early home life is indicated by an Aquarius IC with Neptune in opposition to it. The children stayed with their mother who grew emotionally distant from them and who also began to stay away for weeks at a time therefore times spent with their father were particularly happy times and he gave them anything they wanted. Probably because of this she learnt from a fairly young age how to play one parent off against another and how to use her charm to get the most of people. These were lessons she would draw heavily on in her later life when her charm and diplomacy was used effectively during her husband’s political campaigns.

Her family had suffered financially during the Great Depression and as a result they were comparatively poor for the society circles they still moved in. Jackie was a very intelligent young woman who had a love of travel and an interest in different cultures (again, shown by the sun in Leo conjunct mercury) and she had a real talent for languages. She ended up working as a journalist and a photographer for a magazine to financially support herself and so, in 1952, when she met the extremely wealthy John Kennedy she was as interested in him as he was in her.

Her upbringing had helped shape her emotionally and she was inclined to be aloof and did not connect fully with others which may have been the result of her witnessing the painful relationship of her parents. However it is interesting to note how Jackie Kennedy followed the path of her mother in relation to the man she eventually married. There was little romance during their initial courtship – John Kennedy proposed to her via a telegram – and a good deal of the initial attraction appears to have been centered on what each could get for themselves from the relationship. She had been attracted to strong men and her new husband followed in the mould of her father. To add to this she got on exceedingly well with Jack’s father who also reminded her very much of her own father. With so many strong, powerful men around she felt she had some intellectual competition and enjoyed the intellectual stimulation their company produced.

Looking at her chart there are 2 planet placings which could indicate the path she chose when she agreed to marry John Kennedy. The moon is in Aries in the 5^th which can represent the ghosts of the mother’s choices affecting the child. Therefore she chose the same kind of man her mother had but managed to maintain the family unit and provide a more solid home base for her children to grow up in. Also Jupiter in the 7^th can be an indicator of the freedom versus closeness dilemma which can cause difficulties in relationships. This placing can also provide evidence of one partner staying faithful whilst the other roams around freely looking for new experiences with other partners.

The Kennedy marriage was strained from the very beginning. Her husband was away a lot furthering his political career and indulging in affairs. Also, Jackie found politics boring, her interests were based more upon intellectual and artistic lines, so she felt on occasions that she was left our of the conversations which took place when members of the political scene came to their house, However, she was also very loyal to him and worked as tirelessly as any of his party workers in any promotional capacity she was asked to appear. The public adored her, as they adored her husband. She, too, has Neptune in the 10^th conjunct her MC providing glamour but also illusion.

Behind the image of the happy family things were not well. She had suffered the pain of having given birth to a stillborn child and she would go on to lose another at only a few days old. Along with this there was continual unease over the other women in her husband’s life and, considering their wealth, they argued often over money. Their spending was at times extravagant and she spent an excessive amount of money on redecoration. In one of their homes she redecorated the study 3 times in 5 months and then, when they had moved in to the White House, she took on the extensive redecoration of the White House which eventually became an obsession. I know that Uranus in the 5^th can become easily bored and always needs something new but I think that the desire to change your environment so frequently must stem from a deeper insecurity or perhaps it was the need to strive for perfection.

Until the beginning of the 1960s the marriage had been an uncomfortable one until, around the time of his Uranus opposition to his natal Uranus he started to become more open towards his family. Perhaps too they then started to have a more evenly balance marriage because, as has been seen, she was more than a match for him. After the death of her husband she became an icon for many Americans and was viewed by some as a martyr. Pluto in the 8^th house can often indicate someone who has been close to death and yet who has survived.

Moving on to the chart for Lee Harvey Oswald. When I started on this project I confess to knowing little of the background of Lee Harvey Oswald. One of the first things to strike me about him was the fact that he was only 24 years old when he died. To me he appears to be someone who had lived a normal lifespan in only 24 years.

His family background was unconventional and disturbed. His father is indicated by the sun being placed in the 4^th house conjunct his north node. This placing is a significator of the lack of a father figure in his life following the death of his father 2 months before he was born. There is a real feeling of tension with sun square Chiron in the first house which is widely opposing the 7^th house moon which is the chart ruler. He hero-worshipped his older half-brother when he was a young boy but their relationship became strained as he grew older. His mother, the moon in the 7^th, appeared to have had little control over her youngest son and there also appears to have been little love or affection in the household. Money was very tight and the family moved often – in the first 16 years of his life he attended 12 different schools and had 21 different home addresses. I think that this can be shown by Neptune sitting very close to the IC with the trademark instability, sacrifice and demands on the individual to adjust which it brings. Also in the 4^th house is the north node which required him to work at reconciling issues around him home life and roots.

As a result of the instability of his home life he was teased at school and found it very difficult to form friendships. At the age of 13 he started to stay away from school on a regular basis. Eventually after repeated attempts to get him to return to school he was taken to a youth house for psychiatric assessment as he was deemed to be beyond the control of his mother.

He was really quite an intelligent child but he became incredibly withdrawn and disliked talking about himself. He was insecure and had a vivid fantasy life which seemed to hinge on ideas of personal power and omnipotence.

At 17 he joined the Marines and his military career began. His time in the military appears to have been fairly routine until 1959 when military records indicate that he was involved in intelligence training. On October 9^th 1959 he defected to the USSR. On questioning, others who he had worked with and lived with him could not recall him ever suggesting that he had sympathies with communism. The main transits for that day are Saturn square natal Jupiter giving him feelings of having his freedom of actions curtailed leading to frustrations setting in. Also Uranus was squaring his natal Uranus which could indicate rebellion against society but also which also asks the individual to take responsibility for the consequences of the decisions which they make. It is not entirely clear whether he was chosen to go on an undercover mission to the USSR or whether he chose to go himself and, unfortunately, I don’t feel sufficiently qualified to try to work it out from the astrology shown. Either way this action was a major defining moment in his life. In February 1961, he renounced his previous defection and applied to return to the US. In the March he met Marina Prusakova who was the niece of a lieutenant colonel in the USSR domestic intelligence service and less than 2 months later they were married. Despite his wife’s family connections with the USSR military this appeared to have had little effect on the American immigration department when they returned to the US as they were cleared through immigration in a very short time. Oswald took on casual work and they settled into married life. They had a daughter and Marina was pregnant again when her husband was killed echoing the family situation when Oswald himself was born.

There is one major event which happened on 10^th April 1963 and which is a key moment in his life. On this day at 9pm an attempt was made on the life of a Major General Edwin Walker who was an active and controversial figure in US politics. He was an outspoken anti-Communist who had been accused in 1961 of indoctrinating his troops with right-wing literature and, as a result, he was relieved of his command. On that night a rifle bullet was fired at him through a window and it narrowly missed him. There is a lot of evidence pointing to Oswald’s involvement in the shooting (although witnesses report seeing 2 men outside the house). When looking at the chart for the transits of that event the connections between his natal chart and the event chart are quite striking. The shooting happened exactly to within minutes of his Jupiter return at 1 degree Aries.

If he had been working alone then this showed that he had the capability of organizing and carrying out an assassination. If he was working for someone it showed he would accept such a severe order and would carry it out. Also happening at this time was the transit of Neptune conjunct his natal mercury and for a short time, the moon was also conjunct his natal mercury thus heightening his emotional responses to the situation. One of the potential consequences which comes from the transit of Neptune to mercury is the openness to the ideas of other people and suddenly you can become interested in viewpoints which you had never held before. There is no harm in this obviously but, if like Oswald, you were particularly susceptible to peer pressure then this new mental openness could have dangerous consequences. In Planets in Transit, Robert Hand writes that Neptune and mercury combined always raises the issue of self-deceit – either being deceived by others or using your deceit against others. Robert, here, sent me an e-mail with an interesting insight into the role of Saturn in Oswald’s chart. He pointed out that Saturn in Aries is in its fall and can cause an over-inflated ego which focuses upon the image of the hero and, especially in Oswald’s case, could lead to him indulging in fantasy which others may have decided to exploit. Also with Saturn in Aries is Timothy McVeigh and I’ve included his chart amongst those you have here.

Later in the November of that year Oswald was to become probably the most famous person in the USA when he was accused of assassinating President Kennedy. 2 days later he himself was killed bringing to an end a short but incredible life. His execution was carried out by a man named Jack Ruby who gave his reason as being that he did not want to see Jackie Kennedy having to go through the trauma of the trial. Pretty tenuous, I think. Apparently, Ruby and Oswald actually knew each other. Ruby had been identified as being at the site of Kennedy’s assassination and he also had links with the CIA and organized crime.

Much has been written on the assassination of John Kennedy and it is questionable whether or not the truth will ever emerge.

The chart for the assassination links in with the 3 people involved on every level. In fact, the natal charts of all 3 are triggered by so many transits that we would be here all night if we looked at them all. Looking at John Kennedy’s chart the main transits are Saturn and Neptune squaring mars bringing the individual into ego conflict with others but which can also leave him feeling vulnerable and feeling the need to question at a fundamental level who they really are and what their purpose in life is. Pluto is square the moon and is intensely powerful and can indicate the severing of emotional relationships. I think that the strong indicators of harm to this person come from the outer planets being in tense aspects to all the personal planets in one way or another. In Kennedy’s chart every transiting planet, bar Venus, is either squaring or opposing planets or angles in his natal chart to within 2 degrees. So, although the transits of the outer planets had had long-term effects it is the fact that they, along with all the other transits, came together on that one day. Finally the nodal axis of the assassination chart is conjunct his nodal axis and we’ll find that it is the nodal axis which is prominent in all their charts.

Again with the chart for Jackie Kennedy we have close aspects from the outer planets triggering the natal chart and also the ascendant of the assassination chart is squaring her ascendant/descendant axis forcing her to re-evaluate her life. Interestingly, Jupiter was conjunct her natal Uranus which meant a sudden break away from a responsibility or burden. Perhaps she had begun to see her life as being a burden and, bad as this may sound, her husbands death opened up new opportunities and a certain freedom for her. However, also at this time she had transiting Uranus and Chiron square her natal Jupiter so with this freedom came financial constraints as his family was not willing to finance the lifestyle she had become accustomed to. Perhaps, also she was over-confident and took financial risks.

Pluto was conjunct her mars in her 10^th house and I think this is the significator of how her image was sealed for the American people. Her public image was being undermined by Pluto’s regenerative energy but her public popularity and her show of strength never wavered throughout the weeks following his death yet her public image had been altered and she became many people a martyr and too many others she had become public property and as such she was meant to remain John Kennedys dignified widow for the rest of her life. This combined with Neptune conjunct her Ascendant and Saturn altered her view of the world and her image in the world.

Finally the nodal axis of the assassination chart runs through her 2^nd and 8^th houses and squares her Uranus. She had been placed in an unimaginable situation which would require her to call on all of her 2^nd house personal resources to win through and to come out of the experience as unscathed as possible.

The surprising thing about the transits of that day to Oswald’s chart is that there is nothing to particularly point to the events to come. Considering that he would have only two days to live after the assassination he was very much living on borrowed time and perhaps I expected to see too much in the chart. He did have Saturn square his natal Uranus which indicates a tension between the need for change and a need for things to remain structured. Perhaps he felt this pressure from those he had become involved with – it is possible that at the start of the plot he had felt a degree of power and control within the group but this would probably have begun to slip as the plot developed around him. Apart from this the transits were fairly benign – Venus square MC and Neptune and Jupiter square the ascendant/descendant axis were no indicators of what was to come. However the nodal axis was again prominent in being conjunct his ascendant/descendant axis, lying through the 1^st and 7^th houses.

The actions which have been attributed to Oswald were to have major repercussions for years to come as private and foreign policies altered under the new administration. Many years later it came to light that some of the evidence pertaining to the assassination had been withheld. For example, on the day that he was arrested Oswald had taken a nitrate test which showed that he had not fired a rifle in the previous 24 hours also it was withheld that he was not a good shot. The president’s brain disappeared and photos and x-rays of the autopsy were not examined. Indeed, the pathologist burned the first draft of the autopsy.

Perhaps it was convenient for those in power to maintain the lone-assassin theory to avoid questions which could undermine the newly appointed administration. The country was in a state of shock and confusion and, for better or worse, Oswald provided a convenient "get-out clause" which was widely accepted.

Associated charts
Jacqueline Kennedy
John Fitzgerald Kennedy
Lee Harvey Oswald
Kennedy assassination
Kennedy inauguration
Walker assassination attempt
Timothy McVeigh