U.S. Secretaries of War & Defense

[Jim Eshelman]

From its founding, our nation's military has had civilian leadership. Beneath the Commander in Chief, the ranking overseer was the Secretary of War. This title continued until the late 1940s when the Department of Defense was created, the Secretary of Defense replacing the office of Secretary of War.

There were 56 terms of Secretaries of War. One of these, Henry Stimson, was a repeat (two discrete terms), and has only been counted once. There have then been 24 Secretaries of Defense (one of whom, Donald Rumsfeld, was a repeat and has been counted only once). There have been two Acting Secretaries of Defense (not counted as yet). This leaves 55 discrete Secretaries of War and 23 discrete Secretaries of Defense, or 78 individuals.

If the Sun spent the same amount of time in each sign, the expected frequency would be 6.5 in each sign. (It is close to this.)

The outcome is starkly different from the Secretary of State figures. Starkly!

To give a rough idea of what numbers would be statistically significant... The Moon, over time, spends exactly the same amount of time in each sign. This makes the expected value for the Moon in a given sign 1/12 (or, in this case, 6.5 times out of 78). The standard deviation is 2.44. The 20-to-1 odds level is surpassed at a value 4.78 larger or smaller than mean expectancy, i.e., at least 12 or no more than 1. The 10% level is reached at the slightly more conservative level of at least 11 and no more than 2.

The Sun would be close to this, but not exactly the same.

In contrast to the Secretary of State, which had peaks of Sun in Aries and Pisces, and an acute shortage in Leo and Aquarius, the Secretaries of War and Defense have peaks (11 Suns each) in Leo, Aquarius, and Sagittatarius, and significant lows (only 1 each) with the Sun in Aries or Pisces. (One of the two Acting Secretaries of Defense also has a Leo Sun.)

The Moon signs have a striking peak of 13 occurrences in Virgo.

[Jim Eshelman]

The Sun and Moon breakdowns for the Secretaries of War & Defense are as follows:

Code: Select all

Ari		 1	 6	
Tau		 9	 3	
Gem		 4	10	
Can		 7	 6	
Leo		11	 4	
Vir		10	13	
Lib		 3	 5	
Sco		 6	 6	
Sag		11	 8	
Cap		 3	 6	
Aqu		11	 4	
Pis		 2	 7

[Jim Eshelman]

One of the most fascinating things, to me, in the Secretaries of State and Secretaries of War & Defense studies is that they produced essentially opposite results. The following two graphs make this very clear. (Notice that the Sagittarius extreme of War/Defense is reduced because there was a modestly strong representation of this among Secretaries of State, so that it isn't as keen a distinction between the two.

(I weighted the number of Secretary of State entries - straight proportional multiplication - so that the number matched that of total Secretaries of War & Defense. I excluded Acting Secretaries. It was then a straight subtraction for display purposes.

Secs-Sun.gif

Secs-Moon.gif

[Jim Eshelman]

(2/10/2017)

The new Secretary of Defense, James Mattis, is a Leo-Cancer. This places Leo ahead of Virgo, Sagittarius, and Aquarius as the single most common Sun-sign for a Secretary of War or Defense. (Cancer Moons are rather ordinary in number.)

Earlier Leos in this position include few that I recognize by name (except for recent ones). William Howard Taft (later president) stands out, as do Nixon's SecDef Melvin Laird and Caspar Weinberger, for modern examples.

Cancer Moons include Taft again - so he and Mattis are in the same Sun-Moon pair - and the recent, respected Robert Gates (who has a Virgo Sun). Another Leo-Cancer, for those who want to research past holders of this position with similar character patterns, is Robert Abercrombie Lovett.