Too many American lawyers remained silent while the United States conducted illegal torture and the Constitution was violated by disregard for the rule of law, Ted Sorensen told law graduates Saturday.

In a commencement address at the University of Nebraska College of Law, his alma mater, Sorensen urged the graduates to act with courage and embrace integrity in their professional pursuits.

"Most of you as new lawyers will soon find it easy to make a buck but find it hard to make a difference," he said, according to an advance copy of the speech obtained by the Journal Star.

Sorensen, who served as President John F. Kennedy's speechwriter and chief adviser, said illegal tactics promoted to defend the country actually weakened U.S. national security.

"Yes, torture gets results," he said.

"It has resulted in easier, swifter, more successful recruitment for terrorist organizations among the millions of young Islamic fanatics who are willing to use the one weapon against which an open society such as ours has no sure defense - suicide bombing.

"It also resulted in a sharp decline in America's standing among allies who might otherwise have provided intelligence and other forms of help.

"It has cost us the respect of other countries that we enjoyed, which protected us against attacks from abroad."

Sorensen, who turned 81 on Friday, grew up in Lincoln and graduated from the College of Law in 1951.

"Intellectually and morally dishonest lawyers (in the Department of Justice) disgraced not only their country but their profession" in claiming that waterboarding and other forms of torture were legal, he said.

"In a country based on the rule of law, in which no man is above the law, whatever his rank or title, no man can undertake, authorize or immunize unlawful conduct," Sorensen said.

"Our current wonderful president cannot promise the CIA practitioners of torture that they will not be prosecuted," he said.

"With all those now exposed of complicity in torture pointing fingers of blame at each other," Sorensen said, "it is clear that the guilty include political ideologues, cowardly bureaucrats and inexperienced psychologists, all of whom plead ignorance of the law.

"But what about the lawyers?" he asked.

America's best military leaders do not support torture because they know it will lead to its use against U.S. military personnel, Sorensen said.

"They know that the moral authority of the United States, its traditional ability to occupy the moral high ground in an international conflict, is an important part of our security," he said.

"More important than the worthless statements extracted from torture's victims who will cry out anything to halt it."

Reach Don Walton at 473-7248 or at dwalton@journalstar.com.