JEANE DIXON Biography - People in the News and Media

 
 

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JEANE DIXON

Name: Jeane Dixon                                                                   
Born: 5 January 1904                                                               
Died: 25 January 1997                                                               
                                                                                   
Jeane L. Dixon (January 5, 1904 - January 25, 1997) was one of the best-known       
American astrologers and psychics of the 20th century, due to her syndicated       
newspaper astrology column, some well-publicized predictions and a best-selling     
biography.                                                                         
                                                                                   
Born Lydia Emma Pinckert in Medford, Wisconsin, but raised in Missouri and         
California, Dixon was very reluctant to release personal details. She was           
married to James Dixon from 1939 until his death, but they apparently had no       
children. She worked with him in his successful real estate business.               
                                                                                   
She is best known for allegedly predicting the assassination of President John F.   
Kennedy. In the May 13, 1956, issue of Parade Magazine she wrote that the 1960     
presidential election would be "dominated by labor and won by a Democrat" who       
would then go on to "[B]e assassinated or die in office though not necessarily     
in his first term." She later admitted, During the 1960 election, I saw Richard     
Nixon as the winner.                                                               
                                                                                   
Dixon gained public awareness through the biographical volume, A Gift of           
Prophecy: the Phenomenal Jeane Dixon, written by syndicated columnist Ruth         
Montgomery. Published in 1965, the book sold more than 3 million copies. A         
devout Roman Catholic, she attributed her prophetic ability to God.                 
                                                                                   
President Richard Nixon referred to Dixon as "the soothsayer" and ordered           
preparations for a terrorist attack she had predicted. She was also one of         
several astrologers who gave advice to Nancy Reagan during the presidency of       
Ronald Reagan.                                                                     
                                                                                   
Dixon was so well-known that John Allen Paulos, a mathematician at Temple           
University, coined what he called the "Jeane Dixon effect", in which people         
loudly tout a few correct predictions and overlook false predictions. Many of       
Dixon's forecasts proved false, such as her prediction that World War III would     
begin in 1958 over the offshore Chinese islands of Quemoy and Matsu, that labor     
leader Walter Reuther would run for president in 1964 and that the Soviets would   
land the first man on the moon.                                                     
                                                                                   
It had commonly been reported that Dixon was born January 3, 1918; however, per     
the Social Security Death Index her actual birthdate was January 5, 1904. She       
died of cardiac arrest in Washington, D.C. on January 25, 1997, at the age of 93.