Abridged Transcript:
A time comes when silence is betrayal. That time has come for us. Even when pressed by the demands of inner truth, men do not easily assume the task of opposing their government's policy, especially in time of war. I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today -- my own government. What do they think as we test our latest weapons on them, just as the Germans tested out new medicine and new tortures in the concentration camps of Europe? Now there is little left to build on -- save bitterness. We are met by a deep but understandable mistrust. To speak for them is to explain this lack of confidence in Western words, and especially their distrust of American intentions now. The world now demands a maturity of America that we may not be able to achieve. This way of settling differences is not just. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death. Somehow this madness must cease. We must stop now. I speak as one who loves America. To the leaders of our own nation, the great initiative in this war is ours. The initiative to stop it must be ours.