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The reaction in the U.S. was still too mixed to gauge accurately. The Cabinet closed ranks firmly behind Nixon; as he stopped in the Cabinet Room after his telecast, he was greeted by a standing ovation. "Mr. President, you were determined and resolute, and you made your point well," said HEW Secretary Elliot Richardson. Interior Secretary Rogers Morton assured Nixon that he could expect the support of most of the American public.
White House aides reported a heavy mail and telegram response running 5 to 1 in the President's favor. A Louis Harris survey showed that 59% of Americans backed Nixon's mining decision, although Harris saw this as more of a rallying reaction in a crisis than a necessarily lasting view. The California Poll reported a sharp rise in popular support after the speech; the previous week only 41% had approved of the way Nixon was handling the war, but after his pronouncement the figure rose to 53%. Yet New York's Republican Senator Jacob Javits said his mail showed an overwhelming protest—by 35 to 1—and even his conservative colleague, James Buckley, counted a 2-to-1 margin against the President.
Protesters returned to the streets in the largest numbers since the Cambodian incursion and the Kent State killings two years ago. There was an air of "Here we go again" futility about the demonstrations that made them seem less intense than before. Or perhaps newsmen, too, had become bored by the tactic. Yet across the nation more than 2,000 protesters were arrested and many beaten in clashes with police. Four University of New Mexico students were wounded by police gunfire. National Guardsmen restored order at the University of Minnesota after two days of traffic stopping and window smashing by some 2,000 students, many of whom had been clubbed by cops.
Yet the campus mood was best expressed by Stanford University President Richard W. Lyman, known as a home-front disciplinarian. He warned that the lack of large-scale riots did not mean students and academicians had grown indifferent to the war; rather there had developed "a dangerous and ever-growing disenchantment with a political system" that cannot end a war that is "immoral at worst, and a failure at best." At Amherst, President John William Ward told some 700 students: "I speak out of frustration and deep despair. I do not think that words will change the minds of the men in power, and I do not care to write letters to the world. What I protest is that there is no way to protest." Ward then joined a sit-down demonstration at Westover Air Force Base and was arrested.