Jeane Dixon

Jeane Dixon (January 5, 1904 – January 25, 1997) was a widely known American psychic and astrologer, famous for predicting John F. Kennedy’s assassination, a syndicated astrology column, several publicized forecasts, and a bestselling biography. A devout Roman Catholic, she credited God for her prophetic abilities. Her fame grew sharply after Ruth Montgomery’s 1965 biography A Gift of Prophecy sold over 3 million copies.

Early life

Born Lydia Emma Pinckert in Medford, Wisconsin, she was one of ten children of German-born Richard Franz Pinckert and his wife Luise Johanne Emma Graefe, both Roman Catholics. She was raised in Missouri and California.

Dixon often gave her birth year as 1918, even producing a passport to support this, but once testified in a deposition that she was born in 1910. A National Observer reporter, after interviewing family and checking records, concluded she was actually born in 1904. She claimed that as a child in California, a “Gypsy” gave her a crystal ball and read her palm, predicting she would become a famous seer who advised powerful people.

Family

She married James Dixon, a divorcé, in 1939; they had no children. He was a California car dealer who later ran a successful Washington, D.C., real estate firm, where Jeane worked and served as president. Her brother was football player Erny Pinckert.

Career

In the May 13, 1956, issue of Parade Magazine, Dixon wrote that the 1960 presidential election would be “dominated by labor and won by a Democrat” who would then “be assassinated or die in office though not necessarily in his first term.” As the election neared, she changed her mind and incorrectly predicted Richard Nixon’s victory, later admitting she “saw Richard Nixon as the winner.” She appeared in the film The Man Who Saw Tomorrow, discussing Nostradamus and her Kennedy prediction. She wrote seven books, including an autobiography, a horoscope book for dogs, and an astrological cookbook. Another million-seller, My Life and Prophecies, was credited “as told to Rene Noorbergen,” but Adele Fletcher sued, claiming her rejected manuscript was rewritten as that book; a jury awarded Fletcher 5% of the royalties.

In 1967, Webb and Etoila Hunter of Decatur, Alabama, consulted Dixon about their missing 34-year-old daughter, Mary Faye Hunter. Dixon said Mary Faye was okay, but she was found dead months later. On June 5, 1968, Dixon was at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles to give a speech.

Walking through the kitchen, she reportedly stopped and blurted, “This is the place where Robert Kennedy will be shot. I can see him being carried out with blood on his face.” That day, her prediction came true. In 1969, she was asked to find missing six-year-old Dennis Lloyd Martin in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park but failed.

Richard Nixon followed her writing through secretary Rose Mary Woods and met with her in the Oval Office in 1971. After the Munich massacre, her prediction of terrorist attacks in the U.S. spurred Nixon to create a cabinet committee on counterterrorism. She was one of several astrologers advising Nancy Reagan.

Dixon predicted that before the end of the 20th century, a pope would suffer bodily harm and another would be assassinated—linked to the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II and allegations about Pope John Paul I. She also said dissatisfied cardinals would replace a serving pope, possibly referring to John Paul I. In her 1971 book The Call to Glory, she predicted an apocalyptic “war of Armageddon” around 2020. In her 1969 book My Life and Prophecies, she predicted a war between China and Russia between 2025 and 2037, initiated and won by China.

The Jeane Dixon effect

Mathematician John Allen Paulos named the tendency to highlight Dixon’s few correct predictions while ignoring many wrong ones “the Jeane Dixon effect.” Many of her forecasts were erroneous, including claims that a dispute over Quemoy and Matsu would trigger World War III in 1958, that labor leader Walter Reuther would run for president in 1964, that Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau’s second child would be a girl (it was a boy), and that the Soviets would be first to land men on the Moon. In The Mask of Nostradamus, James Randi noted that prophets often make many predictions, hoping some come true, and then ignore the rest. He listed several of Dixon’s incorrect predictions—including that Nixon would survive Watergate and make a comeback—calling them only a few from a “very long” list.