Saturday Night Massacre

[Jim Eshelman]

On October 20, 1973, Pres. Richard Nixon fired the Attorney General and Deputy AG because they refused to fire Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox. He then got Robert Bork, the new acting AG, to do so. This was called the Saturday Night Massacre and was a high-tension big-game moment in the Watergate process.

What was the tone of the year? The Capsolar and Cansolar were dormant, though the latter had a close Moon-Jupiter conjunction. A new Liblunar was technically dormant, too, with a stationary Saturn 3°36' from IC - I don't know if the station gave it more oomph - with a foreground Saturn-Pluto square and (04') Sun-Uranus conjunction square Moon. But I think we can't count this too loudly.

This means that the only non-dormant solar ingress of the prior 12 months was the April 13 ARISOLAR with a close Sun-Venus conjunction on EP / square MC. Moon closely squared Saturn. Pluto is < 3° from Descendant, and there's a little Uranus (foreground op. Sun-Venus). Overall, the pressure is on, separative energies are building, it's beyond unpleasant, but there is still a measure of presidential ease and comfort - especially if he can make Cox go away!

Both the Caplunar and the Arilunar have Mars just a little too far from Descendant, are technically dormant, but have a high level of tension and conflict - if they were live. (The Canlunar is also dormant.) The prior Liblunar is the only live lunar ingress, and it has Saturn 2° from Ascendant square a Sun-Pluto conjunction closely (and Sun-Pluto widely squares Ascendant) - and a mundane Moon-Pluto conjunction 22' that also conjoins Mercury and Uranus. Yikes, this is quite a foreshadowing of the eventual resignation pattern almost a year later.

Transiting Pluto squares Capsolar MC, and is part of a Saturn-Pluto 25' square with Saturn not quite in orb of Capsolar IC. Concurrently, transiting Neptune squared Cansolar Asc.

It was a crazy time!