SANTA BARBARA, California - The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation is pleased to announce it will honor Dr. Daniel Ellsberg with its 2005 Distinguished Peace Leadership Award and The Honorable Douglas Roche, O.C. with its Lifetime Achievement Award. Following the awards presentation, Helen Thomas will conduct a live unscripted interview with both honorees. The Awards will be presented during the Foundation’s 22nd annual Evening for Peace gala and ceremony on Saturday, October 29, 2005 at Fess Parker’s Doubletree Resort in Santa Barbara, California. The theme for the 2005 awards dinner is Taking a Stand for Peace.

Dr. Daniel Ellsberg was a top-level analyst for the RAND Corporation assigned to the Pentagon when he released the Pentagon Papers to the news media. His actions shined the light of truth on secret US policies in Vietnam and helped to turn public opinion against that war and bring it to an end. For exposing the Pentagon Papers, Ellsberg was prosecuted and faced more than 100 years in prison. Fortunately, his case was dismissed when the Nixon administration committed illegal acts in raiding the office of Ellsberg’s psychiatrist. Since that time, for more than 35 years, Daniel Ellsberg has been active in working for peace, government accountability and the abolition of nuclear weapons.

The Honorable Douglas Roche, O.C. is a former Canadian Ambassador for Disarmament and member of the Canadian Senate who has played a major role in the global effort to eliminate nuclear weapons. In 1998, he formed the Middle Powers Initiative, a coalition of eight international civil society organizations, including the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, to encourage and assist middle power governments to put pressure on the nuclear weapons states to fulfill their disarmament obligations under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Helen Thomas will conduct an unscripted live interview with both honorees at the annual Evening for Peace. Noted for her tough questions and pioneering spirit, Helen Thomas is widely acknowledged as the dean of the White House press corps. She served for 57 years as a correspondent for United Press International and, as White House Bureau Chief, covered every president since John F. Kennedy. She is currently a nationally syndicated columnist for Hearst Newspapers.

Since 1984, the Foundation has honored some of the great peace leaders of our time, including His Holiness the XIVth Dalai Lama, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Helen Caldicott, Captain Jacques Cousteau, Jody Williams, and King Hussein of Jordon, among others. The Distinguished Peace Leadership Award is presented annually to individuals who have demonstrated courageous leadership in the cause of peace.

For more than 20 years, the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation has been committed to advancing initiatives to eliminate the nuclear weapons threat to all life, to fostering the global rule of law, and to building an enduring legacy of peace through education and advocacy. The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation is a non-profit, non-partisan international organization with consultative status to the United Nations.

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