Terror Watch: Nixon and Dixon

Still, none of Dixon's seemingly wacky predictions seem to have shaken Nixon's faith. White House tapes show Woods (who died in January at the age of 87) provided Nixon with Dixon briefings on a wide range of subjects, covering such matters as the Panama Canal, nuclear arms talks with the Soviets (Dixon thought arms negotiator Paul Nitze "could be a double agent") and the president's prospects during the Watergate crisis. "Jeane Dixon tells us that May and June are going to be pretty bad. June may be worse than May. But everything will turn out fine," Woods told Nixon on May 14, 1973.

The president also had at least one documented Oval Office meeting directly with Dixon--a 36-minute session on May 4, 1971. The tape of that meeting may provide insight into why the president was so keen to hear her forecasts.

In the meeting, also attended by her acolyte, Woods, Dixon tells the president in an excited voice how she had just met with antiwar protesters who were gathering in Washington. She told how she had recounted to the protesters what happened during her first international interview in 1949. She was asked about "a young man that God was gonna make great." Dixon explained that she had meditated on this for a while. Then 10 days later it started to come to her.

"And I got your channel," Dixon told Nixon. "It is because it is God's plan for you, for you to be president of the United States." Dixon explained how she had told all this to the protesters, telling them "that the Lord intended Nixon to be great ... He's here now to lead us to Christ, the prince of the universe."

While Congress was fighting with Nixon, the bickering could end, Dixon said. "We'll all get together and we'll band united under the head of actually the father of our country--that's our president. And it happens to be Nixon."

"Yeah, well, I tell ya," Nixon replies. "Y-you could sell almost anything."