For an American to be patriotic is to be loyal to the principles of our Constitution, and the First Amendment. The truth is that the policies of the government is sometimes in conflict with that. In our country, patriotism should not be defined as obedience to an authority.

It is urgent to prevent new U.S. aggression. The time is now for the world to say 'no' to U.S. threats of air attack against Iran, and to the very notion of a nuclear first-use 'option' by America or any other nation.

But it is important always to keep in mind that the danger of harming humans is not connected only or even mainly with telling secrets, there can be great danger in keeping secrets.

Truth-telling to Congress and the public is not disloyal in America: it is an expression of the higher loyalty officials owe to the Constitution, the rule of law, and the sovereign public. It is a courageous, patriotic, and effective way to serve our country. The time to speak out is now.

The effect of that is to poison the flow of information to the President himself and to create a situation where a President can be almost, to use a metaphor, psychotically divorced from the realities in which he is acting.

My activities, for which I gratefully accept this Award, are today what they have been for over thirty-five years and will be for the rest of my life: to counter governmental secrecy about the nuclear arms race that threatens the survival of life on earth; and to help build a world movement that will prevent a first use since Nagasaki of nuclear explosions, prevent or end interventions that could lead to such an event, and bring about a world free of nuclear weapons.

My feelings of revulsion and foreboding about nuclear weapons had not changed an iota since 1945, and they have never left me. Since I was 14, the overriding objective of my life has been to prevent the occurrence of nuclear war.