ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, January 26, 1997 TAG: 9701270124
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
TYPE: NEWS OBIT
SOURCE: Associated Press
Astrologer Jeane Dixon, who gained national prominence as a psychic when her prediction that President Kennedy would die in office came true, died Saturday. She was 79.
Sibley Hospital spokeswoman Jean Vincent said Dixon died at 2:30 p.m. from a heart attack. He said the hospital was asked not to comment further.
Parade magazine in 1956 quoted Dixon as predicting that a Democratic president elected in 1960 - a tall young man with blue eyes and brown hair - would die in office. According to Dixon, she told interviewers that the president would be assassinated, a prediction they refused to publish.
After Kennedy's death in 1963, the national notice that Dixon received led political columnist Ruth Montgomery to write a book, ``A Gift of Prophecy: the Phenomenal Jeane Dixon,'' that recounted hundreds of accurate predictions made over the years.
The book, published in 1965, sold more than 3 million copies and brought Dixon even more demand on the lecture circuit and a syndicated horoscope column.
She also wrote a series of books including ``My Life and Prophecies'' in 1968; ``Reincarnation and Prayers to Live By'' in 1970; ``The Call to Glory'' in 1972; ``Yesterday, Today and Forever'' in 1976; ``Jeane Dixon's Astrological Cookbook'' in 1976, and ``A Gift of Prayer'' in 1995.
Not all of Dixon's forecasts proved true. She predicted, for instance, 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.
Dixon was born Jan. 3, 1918, in Medford, Wis., into a wealthy lumber family, and grew up in California.
In 1939, she married James Dixon, a California auto dealer who later became a real estate executive in Washington. She worked with him for many years while developing a local reputation as a psychic, giving ``readings'' to servicemen and government officials during World War II. She claimed to have been invited to the White House twice to give consultations to President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Dixon, a devout Roman Catholic, attributed her prophetic ability to God. At age 8, she was taken by her mother to a gypsy fortune teller who said she had a gift for prophesy, which her mother encouraged her to develop.
LENGTH: Medium: 55 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: Jeane Dixon speaks to reporters in this Feb. 16, 1981,by CNBphoto. Dixon, who gained national prominence as a psychic when her
prediction that President Kennedy would die in office came true,
died Saturday.