ABSTRACT
Nixon’s speech stirred countless Americans, who wrote to the White House by the hundreds of thousands. One of these was Mrs. Dennis Harrison, who “decided that I have remained silent long enough.” She confessed to the president that she had earlier been opposed to the war. Indeed, after learning a month before the speech that her husband, a lance corporal in the Marine Corps, would be going to Vietnam, “I was upset and immediately bitter.” But, following the speech, she changed her mind. “I support your Viet Nam policy,” she told Nixon, and “[y]ou can be assured that when anti-war peaceniks try to sway my opinion that I will stand behind you one hundred percent.” The president’s response must have pleased her. “The confidence and understanding you have shown will do much to strengthen our efforts to achieve the just and lasting peace that all of us desire,” he wrote.
