Nixon. He recognized the antiwar movement’s political impact—“the greatest social unrest in America in one hundred years,” he privately called it—and responded in a nationwide television address on November 3. Using his prime-time speech as a counterattack, Nixon belittled antiwar protestors as a “vocal minority” that threatened the country’s “future as a free society” and sought to “impose” its views on others “by mounting demonstrations in the street.” He then appealed to “the great silent majority” of Americans for their support. “Let us be united against defeat,” the president said,
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