Goodwill Ambassador Is the Toast of Moscow

Nearing the completion of a three-hour ride down the Moscow River on the good ship Stepan Raiza, a Soviet sports official asks Ted Turner to join him in a toast. As a rule, Turner never drinks during the day. But he does not want to offend his host.

“What time is it in Atlanta?” Turner asks an associate.

Informed that it is 5 a.m., Turner notes that it is still dark back home and accepts the invitation to join the official in a glass of Russian red wine. Georgian would have been more appropriate, but the host is proud of the Russian wine.

They toast the Goodwill Games, which Turner created and, through his superstation, WTBS, is co-producing in conjunction with the Soviet television and sports committees.

They toast good will.

They toast each other.

“To Ted Turner, the toast of the town,” the Soviet official could have said without exaggerating in the least.

Since Turner, 47, arrived two weeks ago, he has become the most popular American in Moscow since Levi Strauss. The Soviet newspapers are enamored of him. They call him a good capitalist, a rare breed indeed. They describe him in terms that until now have been reserved for Armand Hammer, the American industrialist who has succeeded in dealing with the Soviets for several decades.

In an article last week, Komsololskaya Pravda said: “Although Mr. Turner is a true representative of his class and does not plan changes in the system that supports him, still his goal is a situation when people could switch on their television sets without fear that they would see the beginning of a world catastrophe.”

When people here switch on their television sets, they are likely to see Ted Turner.

There he is, shaking hands with French President Francois Mitterrand.

There he is, placing a wreath at the tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

There he is, at Lenin’s mausoleum.

“Not too bad,” Turner said later of Lenin’s body. “A little pale, but not too bad.”

Three glasses of Russian red later, Turner, who was known as two-beer Ted during his college days at Brown University, before he was expelled for setting fire to a homecoming float on one of his three-beer days, returns to the deck of the Stepan Raiza, where he soon is surrounded by journalists.

“I am from Hungary,” one of them tells him.

“How’re you?” Turner says. “I’m from America.”

“I am from Bulgaria,” another journalist says.

“Hungary, too?” Turner says.

“Bulgaria,” the man repeats.

“Hungary, Bulgaria, what’s the difference?” Turner says.

A little earlier, an hour into the boat ride, Turner and the Soviet sports official, Marat Gramov, had given a press conference.

Turner was asked about his world view.

“I love my country very much,” he said. “But I must say I love all people over the world, and we better all start loving each other or we’re going to blow each other to kingdom come.”

It is virtually impossible to talk with Turner for more than a few minutes without him introducing the subject of the potential for nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union. The subject obsesses him, which he says was his inspiration for the Goodwill Games. If people from the two countries meet in athletic competition, he says, they are less likely to want to destroy each other.

He compares his efforts here to Richard Nixon’s Ping-Pong diplomacy in China.

So what if it costs Turner $35 million?

“ABC lost $60 million on Monday Night Football last year,” he says. “Don’t get me wrong--I love Monday Night Football. But what is ABC doing for the world?”

Turner is here to ban the bomb.

“Can you imagine a nuclear bomb over this city?” he had said a few days earlier, standing at the window of his 16th-floor suite in the Cosmos Hotel and holding his hands out to Moscow. He has a view of the monument to Sputnik, the monument to production and the main television tower. On the wall of his living room are U.S. and Soviet flags.

“Think about bombs over Los Angeles,” he said. “It may be smoggy and congested in Los Angeles, but that’s better than a nuclear bomb.

“Life’s short enough as it is. We’ve got a lot of good stuff now, like cable television and McDonald’s. One nuclear bomb, and we’re all gone.

“Besides us, what about the dogs?”

“The dogs?” he was asked.

“The dogs,” Turner said. “The dogs here aren’t Communist dogs. They’re just dogs.”

Back on the deck of the Stepan Raiza, two Polish journalists invite Turner to Warsaw. Turner tells them of his experiences with Polish vodka. When the journalists tell him they have a bottle in their hotel rooms, Turner invites them to his suite.

A Soviet journalist interrupts to ask Turner about his hunting trip last year in the Soviet Union. Turner says he has just received the stuffed head of a mountain goat he bagged and invites the man to his suite.

A journalist from India asks to take a picture of Turner with his wife, Janie, and two of their four children, Beau and Jennie, who are with them on the boat. Turner invites the journalist to his suite.

“When are you going to be the President?” a Czech journalist asks.

Americans in Moscow for the Goodwill Games have been asked that question more than once by people here, mostly by Soviet journalists and low-level government officials. When told that Turner does not have the credentials to be President, the people say, “Yes, but Reagan was an actor.”

What can you say?

Here is what Turner says to the Czech journalist: “I don’t want to be the President. The President has to worry about making the trains run on time. The President has to worry about the economy. I don’t want to try to solve the problems of one country. I want to solve the problems of the world. I don’t have time to be the President.”

Standing nearby, overhearing the conversation, are several American reporters. They begin laughing.

“C’mon, you guys,” Turner says. “You know what I mean. I mean, even if I could be the President, I wouldn’t want to be. Why would anybody want to be the President?”

The Czech journalist appears disappointed.

He says he wants Turner to be the President.

Turner invites him to his suite.