Something haunting about this relic, like a skeleton in the desert, remnants from a trusting, hopeful and optimistic age.

People from just 20 years before would have marvelled at this wonderful utopian future... "Seriously, you can just send a message to POTUS using electronic mail?!" But only 30 years further on it looks like an object of mockery

Did this actually function or is the "no further correspondence" a clue that they piped this whole show to /dev/null after about a week?

It's funny, I had that exact feeling when I opened the page but I couldn't put into words. Thank you for that.

They replied by snail mail. Someone read them or at least some of them.

Unless you were an idiot and treated it as a joke, in which case, even outside the US (well, probably only places with US consulates), they replied with a visit by local law enforcement accompanied by a secret service agent.