Shcharansky's trial and conviction unleashed a wave of support. Dozens of petitions were signed. Committees were established on university campuses and in Congress. The thirty-five-thousand-member Association for Computer Machinery cut all ties with the Soviet Union. By the end of 1978, twenty-four hundred American scientists--including thirteen Nobel laureates as well as researchers representing the leading scientific institutions--had joined on to a "statement of conscience," pledging to avoid all cooperation with the Soviet Union until Orlov and Shcharansky were freed. Avital's celebrity reached new heights. She found herself in the Rayburn House hearing room on Capitol Hill surrounded by lawmakers climbing over one another to issue the most indignant statements and the angriest proclamations about what should be done in retaliation. () Avital had met with Cyrus Vance, the secretary of state, and UN ambassador Andrew Young the day after the verdict was announced, and on July 17, she was ushered into the White House for a half-hour meeting with Walter Mondale, the vice president. () He praised her for her "courage, dignity and strength" and then referred to Shcharansky's final speech at the trial, saying that it would "go down in literature as a great statement by an oppressed person."