Kudos to a Bridge Builder : Glasnost: Media mogul Ted Turner is recognized for contributing to U.S.-Soviet friendship.

Calling it the “first ever glasnost award,” Charlton Heston presented media titan Ted Turner with a plaque Thursday evening.

The Regent Beverly Wilshire Hotel ballroom was bathed in red--tablecloths, roses, balloons--for the event co-sponsored by Soviet Life magazine and the Volunteers of America of Los Angeles. Co-chairs were Heston, glasnost pioneer Armand Hammer and King World’s Michael King.

Soviet gymnast Olga Korbut was set to present the award to the chairman and president of Turner Broadcasting System (Cable News Network, Turner Network Television, TBS SuperStation). But at the last minute she was informed by authorities in Moscow that her visa had expired (her American agent said it hadn’t), according to Mark Cosman, head of Friends of the VOA in Los Angeles.

Turner has been involved with the Soviet Union since launching the Goodwill Games in Moscow in 1986 (scheduled again this July in Seattle). His CNN World Report began airing there in November. Expressing his desire to build bridges with all countries, Turner said he no longer permits his cable news staffs to use the word foreign .

He was accompanied by Jane Fonda, and the couple posed for throngs of photographers before heading into the party.

“I think Ted Turner thinks he’s Rhett Butler and Jane Fonda thinks she’s Scarlet O’Hara,” chortled TV producer Charles Fries. “This may be the real thing.”

“I knew when it happened last year when nobody knew it,” said gossip maven Rona Barrett.

The party coincides with VOA’s efforts to help establish alcohol abuse programs throughout the Soviet Union.