Allegations Against Actress Vanessa Redgrave Regarding Anti‑Israel Activities and a Canceled Boston Symphony Performance

4.2.12 WC: 191694 last time I was physically threatened for what I believe. Free speech is anything but free in the real world of high passions and violent tempers. It is imperative that those of us who defend the rights of bigots and others to express horrible views go out of our way to challenge these bad views in the marketplace of ideas. It is a commonplace among civil Libertarians that the appropriate answer to bad speech is good speech, not censorship. We must provide that good speech as we defend the bad speech. I had the opportunity to do just that when the actress Vanessa Redgrave had a scheduled performance with the Boston Symphony Orchestra cancelled because of her controversial political views and activities. I defended her right to perform but challenged her to a debate about her outrageous political views. She declined because she was on the Central Committee of the Revolutionary Workers Party — a British Stalinist group — and the Party had to approve in advance everything she said in public. I then explained the hypocrisy of her complaints about being “blacklisted” for her political views and activities, while she herself, and her Party, advocated the blacklisting of others. In 1978, Redgrave had offered a resolution demanding that the British Actors Union blacklist Israeli artists and boycott Israeli audiences. The resolution included a “demand” that “all members working in Israel terminate their contacts and refuse all work in Israel.” Several years later, she justified as “entirely correct” the blacklisting of Zionist speakers at British universities. And she has praised the ultimate form of censorship: the political assassination of Israeli artists, because they “may well have been enlisted ... to do the work” of the Zionists. Redgrave herself has used her art “to do the work” of terrorists. In 1977, she made a film calling for the destruction of the Jewish state by armed struggle. She has personally received training in terrorism at camps from which terrorist raids were staged. She advocated the assassination of Nobel Peace Prize winner Anwar Sadat. After playing her controversial role as concentration camp survivor in Arthur Miller’s 1980 teledrama “Playing for Time” she traveled around the world arguing that her selection for the role constituted a propaganda victory against Israel. In 1982, the Boston Symphony Orchestra hired Redgrave to narrate several performances of Stravinsky’s opera-oratorio “Oedipus Rex”. There is some dispute over whether she was hired entirely because of her unquestionable acting ability or also because of her political “courage.” As soon as the decision was announced, there was outrage among some of the orchestra’s musicians, subscribers and board members. Some musicians suggested that they would exercise their own freedom of association by refusing to perform with a terrorist collaborator who justified assassination of artists. At the end, the orchestra decided — wrongly, in my view — to cancel the performances of “Oedipus Rex”. They offered to pay Redgrave the money she would have received if the show had gone on. Redgrave declined the offer and sued the orchestra for breach of contract, seeking $5 million in damages. She claimed that the effect of the cancellation was that she was “blacklisted” by the Boston Symphony Orchestra and could no longer find appropriate work. The orchestra board responded that Redgrave has earned more money since the cancellation than before it, and that if anyone has refused to hire her, it is because she has used her art to serve the 144 HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_017231