SPOTTSWOOD W. ROBINSON, III, Circuit Judge:
This appeal brings on for review a judgment of the District Court sustaining the discharge of a District of Co[842]*842lumbia police officer by his superiors. We find, upon analysis of the record, that the dismissal was directly attributable to statements by the officer of his views on a matter of public as well as individual concern. We find, too, that the judgment lacks the support of evidence and a judicial determination that the statements detrimentally affected the efficiency of the officer or the employing agency in the rendition of service to the community. On these bases, we reverse and remand the ease to the District Court for further proceedings.
I
The relevant events are not in serious dispute. Appellant was a first-year patrolman-officer in the Metropolitan Police Department. For a newcomer at that rank, service of a one-year probationary period is prerequisite to eligibility for a permanent appointment to the force.1
2Near the end of his probationary period, appellant participated actively in a meeting of the District of Columbia Policemen’s Association regarding, and in a congressional lobby for, a bill proposing a pay raise for policemen and firemen.2 The present controversy arose when Washington newspapers reported statements he made in favor of a “sick-in” 3 of police officers if the pending bill did not pass.
The Department deemed some of the statements objectionable4 and appellant was promptly questioned about them. In an interview conducted by Captain Robert E. Ellis and Inspector Robert W. Klotz, appellant admitted that, with minor exceptions, the press had quoted him accurately. During the interview, appellant also declared that if a “sick-out” 5 was the “general consensus” of his fellow officers, he would report himself ill and join in the effort.6 After the interview,7 Inspector Klotz submitted to the Chief of Police a report citing appellant’s “poor attitude and lack of loyalty,” 8 and recommending his dismis[843]*843sal “for conduct unbecoming and prejudicial to the Department.” 9
A few days later, appellant was notified that he would be separated from the police force. The letter of notification informed appellant that “[t]his action is being taken because you have been quoted by news media as advocating that members of this Department take part in a ‘Blue Flu’ or ‘Sick Out’ as a means of protesting the lack of action by Congress regarding the proposed pay bill for the Police and Fire Departments.” By the Police Department’s interpretation, the letter said, “[t]his action would involve large numbers of officers falsely reporting themselves too ill to perform their assigned duties.” “Such conduct,” the letter continued, “indicates your intention to violate the criminal prohibitions contained in” an anti-strike statute10 and “is also clearly in violation of” an anti-strike departmental regulation.11
The letter of notification also referred to the interview. “Subsequent to the publication of the statements attributed to you by the news media,” it read, “you had an opportunity to reflect on these statements,” but in the interview “you verbally reinforced these statements as to their accuracy.” The letter concluded that “[s]uch conduct clearly indicates that you do not intend to pursue your career as a Police Officer in such a1 manner as would enhance the image of the Police Department or aid in carrying out its obligation to the community which it serves.”
Prior to the effective date’ of separation, appellant filed suit in the District Court. His complaint alleged that his imminent discharge was occasioned by an exercise of his First Amendment right of free speech, and by an asserted violation of the anti-strike statute12 and its counterpart in departmental regulations.13 The complaint asked the District Court to declare the dismissal unlawful, to enjoin it, and to declare the statute and the regulation unconstitutional. Appellees14 responded to the complaint and later moved for summary [844]*844judgment.15 Appellant opposed the motion on the ground that the ease posed genuine issues of material fact properly resolvable only at a trial.
The District Court granted the motion. In a written opinion16 incorporating “findings of fact,”17 the court articulated its views. The court rejected appellant’s contention that the only reason for his separation from service was that he made the statements in question:
[Appellant’s] statements alerted his supervisors to an attitude incompatible with the obligations of the department to the community. His supervisors would have been remiss in their duty not to have examined further probationary officer. They did so and into such an attitude on the part of a found that he was unfit for permanent appointment to the force, despite the loss to the department of its considerable investment in an otherwise promising candidate.18
On this basis, the court deemed resolution of appellant’s free-speech claim unnecessary,19 but nonetheless undertook to consider it “for the record.” 20 The court held that “[i]n the circumstances of this case, [appellant’s] interest as a citizen in making such statements whether in public or in an interview with his superiors is outweighed by the interests of the police department where the department is judging the conduct and capacity of a probationary officer.” 21 In so concluding, the court laid aside judicial opinions 22 underlying appellant’s argument, in the court’s words, that “the burden [was] on the police department to make a factual showing that the employee’s statements resulted in: (1) reduced efficiency or usefulness of the employee as a police officer; or (2) reduced efficiency, discipline or harmony in the operation of the police department.”23__The court felt that “such a burden would be placed on the police department only if [appellant] first made a sufficient showing that his dismissal resulted solely in reprisal for [845]*845his exercise of First Amendment rights”24 Said the court:
In the instant case, [appellant] has not shown that his dismissal resulted from the exercise of his First Amendment right of free speech. He was dismissed pursuant to D.C.Code § 4-105 25 after his supervisors determined that his conduct or capacity for permanent appointment was unsatisfactory. In making such determinations, the officials of the department need not be deaf to avowed statements of a probationary officer which evidence an attitude inimical to the discipline and efficiency of the department and its obligations to the community.26
The appeal to this court followed.
II
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SPOTTSWOOD W. ROBINSON, III, Circuit Judge:
This appeal brings on for review a judgment of the District Court sustaining the discharge of a District of Co[842]*842lumbia police officer by his superiors. We find, upon analysis of the record, that the dismissal was directly attributable to statements by the officer of his views on a matter of public as well as individual concern. We find, too, that the judgment lacks the support of evidence and a judicial determination that the statements detrimentally affected the efficiency of the officer or the employing agency in the rendition of service to the community. On these bases, we reverse and remand the ease to the District Court for further proceedings.
I
The relevant events are not in serious dispute. Appellant was a first-year patrolman-officer in the Metropolitan Police Department. For a newcomer at that rank, service of a one-year probationary period is prerequisite to eligibility for a permanent appointment to the force.1
2Near the end of his probationary period, appellant participated actively in a meeting of the District of Columbia Policemen’s Association regarding, and in a congressional lobby for, a bill proposing a pay raise for policemen and firemen.2 The present controversy arose when Washington newspapers reported statements he made in favor of a “sick-in” 3 of police officers if the pending bill did not pass.
The Department deemed some of the statements objectionable4 and appellant was promptly questioned about them. In an interview conducted by Captain Robert E. Ellis and Inspector Robert W. Klotz, appellant admitted that, with minor exceptions, the press had quoted him accurately. During the interview, appellant also declared that if a “sick-out” 5 was the “general consensus” of his fellow officers, he would report himself ill and join in the effort.6 After the interview,7 Inspector Klotz submitted to the Chief of Police a report citing appellant’s “poor attitude and lack of loyalty,” 8 and recommending his dismis[843]*843sal “for conduct unbecoming and prejudicial to the Department.” 9
A few days later, appellant was notified that he would be separated from the police force. The letter of notification informed appellant that “[t]his action is being taken because you have been quoted by news media as advocating that members of this Department take part in a ‘Blue Flu’ or ‘Sick Out’ as a means of protesting the lack of action by Congress regarding the proposed pay bill for the Police and Fire Departments.” By the Police Department’s interpretation, the letter said, “[t]his action would involve large numbers of officers falsely reporting themselves too ill to perform their assigned duties.” “Such conduct,” the letter continued, “indicates your intention to violate the criminal prohibitions contained in” an anti-strike statute10 and “is also clearly in violation of” an anti-strike departmental regulation.11
The letter of notification also referred to the interview. “Subsequent to the publication of the statements attributed to you by the news media,” it read, “you had an opportunity to reflect on these statements,” but in the interview “you verbally reinforced these statements as to their accuracy.” The letter concluded that “[s]uch conduct clearly indicates that you do not intend to pursue your career as a Police Officer in such a1 manner as would enhance the image of the Police Department or aid in carrying out its obligation to the community which it serves.”
Prior to the effective date’ of separation, appellant filed suit in the District Court. His complaint alleged that his imminent discharge was occasioned by an exercise of his First Amendment right of free speech, and by an asserted violation of the anti-strike statute12 and its counterpart in departmental regulations.13 The complaint asked the District Court to declare the dismissal unlawful, to enjoin it, and to declare the statute and the regulation unconstitutional. Appellees14 responded to the complaint and later moved for summary [844]*844judgment.15 Appellant opposed the motion on the ground that the ease posed genuine issues of material fact properly resolvable only at a trial.
The District Court granted the motion. In a written opinion16 incorporating “findings of fact,”17 the court articulated its views. The court rejected appellant’s contention that the only reason for his separation from service was that he made the statements in question:
[Appellant’s] statements alerted his supervisors to an attitude incompatible with the obligations of the department to the community. His supervisors would have been remiss in their duty not to have examined further probationary officer. They did so and into such an attitude on the part of a found that he was unfit for permanent appointment to the force, despite the loss to the department of its considerable investment in an otherwise promising candidate.18
On this basis, the court deemed resolution of appellant’s free-speech claim unnecessary,19 but nonetheless undertook to consider it “for the record.” 20 The court held that “[i]n the circumstances of this case, [appellant’s] interest as a citizen in making such statements whether in public or in an interview with his superiors is outweighed by the interests of the police department where the department is judging the conduct and capacity of a probationary officer.” 21 In so concluding, the court laid aside judicial opinions 22 underlying appellant’s argument, in the court’s words, that “the burden [was] on the police department to make a factual showing that the employee’s statements resulted in: (1) reduced efficiency or usefulness of the employee as a police officer; or (2) reduced efficiency, discipline or harmony in the operation of the police department.”23__The court felt that “such a burden would be placed on the police department only if [appellant] first made a sufficient showing that his dismissal resulted solely in reprisal for [845]*845his exercise of First Amendment rights”24 Said the court:
In the instant case, [appellant] has not shown that his dismissal resulted from the exercise of his First Amendment right of free speech. He was dismissed pursuant to D.C.Code § 4-105 25 after his supervisors determined that his conduct or capacity for permanent appointment was unsatisfactory. In making such determinations, the officials of the department need not be deaf to avowed statements of a probationary officer which evidence an attitude inimical to the discipline and efficiency of the department and its obligations to the community.26
The appeal to this court followed.
II
We find ourselves unable to avoid a confrontation with appellant’s First Amendment claim.27 The District Court acknowledged that the factor precipitating the sequence of events leading to appellant’s discharge was newspaper publicity of his statements.28 The court felt, however, that the discharge resulted, not from the utterances themselves, but from an unsatisfactory attitude reflected by them.29 The letter notifying appellant of his separation makes clear that the Police Department similarly viewed the matter as one involving attitude rather than speech.30
We think this analysis does not bear scrutiny. The words appellant spoke were the only indicia of his attitude, and the attitude was inseparably intertwined with the content of the statements.31 It was solely because of what appellant said that the Department perceived the attitude which it deemed inimical to appellant’s continuance as a police officer. And it is clear beyond peradventure that but for the remarks —allegedly protected exercises of the right of free speech — appellant would not have been dismissed from the police force. The First Amendment’s Free Speech Clause32 cannot be laid aside simply on the basis that the speaker was penalized not for his speech but for a state of mind manifested thereby.
Nor does the fact that appellant was a probationary police officer at the time of his ouster relieve us of the duty [846]*846to consider his constitutional argument. We are mindful of the statutory provision, upon which the District Court relied,33 that an officer in that status may be dismissed “after advance written notification of the reasons for and the effective date of the separation” if “during the period of probation [] the conduct or capacity of the probationer is determined . . to be unsatisfactory.” 34 It does not follow, however, that an exercise of free speech could occasion appellant’s removal simply because he lacked more permanent tenure.35 In Perry v. Sinderman,36 the Supreme Court held flatly that lack of a contractual or tenure right to continued employment does not alone defeat the claim that termination of the employment violated the Constitution.37 On the contrary, the Court admonished, “even though a person has no ‘right’ to a valuable governmental benefit and even though the government may deny him the benefit for any number of reasons, there are some reasons upon which the government may not rely.” 38 More specifically, “[i]t may not deny a benefit to a person on a basis that infringes his constitutionally protected interests —especially, his interest in freedom of speech.”39 It thus becomes necessary, for purposes of the statute, to ascertain whether appellant’s utterances could legally justify his superiors’ conclusion that his “conduct or capacity” as a police officer was “unsatisfactory.” Were this not so, the Police Department would be left free to “produce a result which [it] could not command directly,”40 and “[s]uch interference with constitutional rights is impermissible.” 41
We must, then, face the question whether the comments which the Department found objectionable provided a valid basis for appellant’s discharge. And it is important to note that, in addressing this question, we must limit our concern to the observations which appellant expressed publicly,42 in contradistinction to those voiced at the ensuing interview,43 because the discharge was predicated on the former to the exclusion of the latter. True it is that Inspector Klotz, in recommending the dismissal, emphasized appellant’s pronouncements at the interview,44 but the Department’s assignment of reasons for the dismissal was much narrower.
The letter notifying appellant of the impending discharge stated specifically that “ [t] his action is being taken because [appellant had] been quoted by news media as advocating that members of this Department take part in a ‘Blue Flue’ or ‘Sick Out’ . . . .”45 and because “‘[s]uch conduct ... indicates [appellant’s] intention to violate the’ ” anti-strike statute and regulation 46 The letter did mention the interview, [847]*847but merely to make the point that thereat appellant “verbally reinforced these statements as to their accuracy.” 47 Nowhere does the letter base the separation action upon assertions at the interview which went beyond “verbal reinforcement]” of the “accuracy” of the statements quoted by the press.48
The premises upon which the validity of an administrative order is to be decided are only those upon which the agency predicated its action;49 “[i]t is ‘a simple but fundamental rule of administrative law . . . that a reviewing court, in dealing with a determination or judgment which an administrative agency alone is authorized to make, must judge the propriety of such action solely by the grounds invoked by the agency.’ ” 50 We are not at liberty to furnish “an alternative, unstated ground to support an agency’s decision if that ground is one that ‘the agency alone is authorized to make.’ ”51 We turn to a consideration of the validity of appellant’s separation from the force, on the basis upon which the Police Department chose to rest it.
Ill
In Pickering v. Board of Education,52 the Supreme Court held that a governmental employee is constitutionally entitled to participate in open public discussion so long as his utterances do not affect the efficiency of his own performance or the efficiency of the agency in which he is employed.53 In that case, an Illinois public schoolteacher was discharged for writing a letter to a newspaper criticizing the handling of fiscal problems by his superiors. The Court acknowledged that “it cannot be gainsaid that the State has interests as an employer in regulating the speech of its employees that differ significantly from those it possesses in connection with regulation of the speech of the citizenry in general.”54 Nonetheless, the Court declared, “[t]he problem in any case is to arrive at a balance between the interests of the [employee], as a citizen, in commenting upon matters of public concern and the interests of [government], as an employer, in promoting the efficiency of the public services it performs through its employees.” 55
As the District Court observed in the instant case there are elements present here that were wholly absent in Pickering.56 Appellant’s remarks at the meeting of the Policemen’s Association and before the officer-lobbyists assem[848]*848bled on the Capitol grounds can hardly be characterized as mere criticism of superiors.57 Beyond these considerations is the relationship of departmental discipline, harmony and morale,58 and as well of individual loyalty and respect, to the proper functioning of a police force, to which the safety of the community is entrusted.59
It does not necessarily follow, however, that appellant’s utterances — arguably protected by the Free Speech Clause ■ — -actually had a deleterious effect on police operations. Much depended upon other circumstances, as to which there is no evidence in the record, which would bear importantly upon any inquiry in that regard. In their full context, appellant’s statements may have amounted to no more than a lobbying maneuver, instead of a serious exhortation to strike action.60 Appellant’s listeners may have accepted him — a first-year recruit — simply as a rhetorician rather than as a leader.61 And any assumption that the police corps was susceptible to incitement to a “sick-out” or “blue flu” is perhaps a gross underestimate of its dedication to duty.62 These considerations, along with the statements themselves, deserved weight on the scale.
The crucial question for decision was whether appellant’s remarks, in the particular circumstances surrounding them, actually impinged upon qualities making for an effective police force in such manner as to imperil its efficiency.63 It is clear that the District Court did not make that determination. The court’s basic premise was that appellant was discharged because of his attitude rather than his utterances, and that for that reason resolution of appellant’s First Amendment contention was unnecessary.64 And while the court, properly we think, undertook to deal with that claim “for the record,” 65 its technique was faulty to a fatal degree.
Citing factual deviations from Pickering,66 the District Court concluded that “ [i] n the circumstances of this case, [appellant’s] interest as a citizen in making such statements whether in public or in an interview with his superiors 67 is outweighed, by the interests of the police department where the department is judging the conduct and capacity of a probationary officer.”68 It is evident, however, that the court did not have all of the relevant circumstances before it at the time.69 The court’s decision was reached, not following a trial, but on appellees’ motion for summary judgment; consequently, there was no evidence to portray the circumstances in which appellant’s opinions were expressed. Indeed, an affidavit of appellant, before the court when the motion was decided, called attention to his own performance as a police officer,70 [849]*849and denied that he attempted to influence his fellow officers to act out his views.71
The District Court rejected • appellant’s argument that appellees bore the burden of a factual demonstration that appellant’s statements detrimentally affected his efficiency as a police officer or the Department’s efficiency as a police force.72 That, we hold, was error. Appellant’s position finds direct support in judicial decisions,73 as well as full support in established constitutional doctrine. Governmental action affecting fundamental rights does not enjoy a presumption of constitutionality; rather, the burden is upon government to show a compelling governmental interest justifying the intrusion.74 Governmental infliction of a penalty for speech arguably protected by the First Amendment falls squarely within the compass of this requirement.75 The District Court recognized these principles but deemed them inapplicable on the ground that appellant’s dismissal was unrelated to his utterances.76 For reasons previously articulated, we are unable to accept that view.77
Though a police officer, appellant did not completely shed his First Amendment rights when he accepted employment as a public servant. “[P]olicemen, like teachers and lawyers, are not relegated to a watered-down version of constitutional rights.” 78 To be sure, as a policeman appellant was bound to a high standard of accountability for comments made to fellow officers or to the public.79 He could not, however, be banished from the force “on a basis that infringes his constitutionally protected interests — especially, his interest in freedom of speech.”80 Rather, his dis[850]*850charge could be justified only by a specific finding that the statements in question adversely affected his efficiency as a police officer or the efficiency of the Department as a police force.81 That has not been shown by appellees, nor judicially found to be the fact. “[Ojnly considerations of the greatest urgency can justify restrictions on speech, and . . . the validity of a restraint on speech in each case depends on careful analysis of the particular circumstances . . .' . ” 82 If appellant is to be fired, appellees must make a suitable demonstration, and the District Court, following trial, the appropriate determination.83
The judgment appealed from is reversed, and the case is remanded to the District Court for further proceedings in harmony with this opinion.
So ordered.