U.N. Says Thanks a Billion, Ted

Ted Turner is the kind of guy who puts his money where his mouth is. And it’s a good thing: He’s got a lot of money and a lot of mouth.

On Wednesday, the United Nations paid tribute to both, honoring the media mogul for his billion-dollar donation to the organization five years ago, which helped bring the U.S. back to the table at the world body and stimulated a new way of corporate giving.

Although the value of the stock Turner pledged has declined 75%, mostly since Time Warner merged with AOL two years ago, he’s still going to make good on his promise. His original idea was to hand over $100 million a year for 10 years, and so far the U.N. Foundation is on target, disbursing $575 million in grants over five years. But the foundation’s board decided this year to stretch the rest of the billion over a decade instead of five years.

Turner may have less money these days, but his mouth is still as active as ever. “I thought maybe I can extend [the grant] if I keep getting richer. That’s what I did for 10 years. I went from nothing to a pile of money as high as the World Trade Center,” he said Wednesday at United Nations headquarters in New York. “And then just like the World Trade Center -- poof! -- it was gone overnight.”

Even though he’s one of the most undiplomatic guys around, he says he’s always had a thing for the United Nations.

“Since I was a little boy, I’ve always been very partial to the U.N. I love the flags,” the CNN founder said. From its inception, CNN has had a news bureau at the United Nations and flown the powder-blue U.N. banner -- along with a Georgia flag -- in front of its Atlanta headquarters. But there’s more to it.

“The U.N. is a place for people to argue,” Turner said. “As long as we’re talking to each other, even shouting at each other, we’re not shooting at each other. When the talking stops, the poop hits the fan.”

Though ambassadors raise their eyebrows at Turner’s way of putting things, some say they secretly wish they could say what he says.

“Maybe it takes a billion bucks,” said one diplomat at the Wednesday lunch. “But I’m glad somebody out there is doing it.”

With his Rhett Butler mustache and Southern swagger to match, Turner is alternately jaw-droppingly politically incorrect and indisputably charming, each barb softened by a bad-boy smile.

At a dinner honoring him two years ago, Turner was introduced to the Israeli ambassador and promptly asked the envoy, in a voice that carried across the room, when Israeli soldiers were going to stop shooting at “kids throwing rocks.” At Wednesday’s luncheon, he looked at Russian envoy Sergei V. Lavrov and said, “Hey Mr. Ambassador from Moscow, when are we going to stop pointing our missiles at each other?”

But he’s a good guy, all heart, who would rather die than hurt anybody, he says.

Although he doesn’t disagree with the Bush administration’s strategy on Iraq, especially its willingness to work through the U.N., he wants to give Saddam Hussein the benefit of the doubt. If he had a chance to chat with the Iraqi president, he said, he would advise him: “Get rid of your weapons of mass destruction. Come clean, and turn over a new leaf.” Then he would present him with a biography of Martin Luther King Jr.

Turner’s giving is admittedly impulsive. Some say it’s compulsive.

Five years ago, on a plane to New York to be honored as the United Nations Assn.’s Man of the Year, he said, he was trying to think of what to say in his speech. “I wanted to give them some money, then I thought: ‘It’s got to be a big figure. It’s got to get in the newspapers. How about a billion?’ ”

Turner called his lawyers and accountants when he landed and told them they had 48 hours to figure out how to make it happen. When they called back and said the U.N. could take money only from a government, not an individual, he was relieved at first. “I said, ‘Thank God,’ ” he recalled. It was later decided that the money would be acceptable if funneled through a foundation.

Turner admits that his wild ideas shock even him sometimes and that his staff helps keep him in check. “But there’s always a way to get around it,” he said with a howling laugh.

“When I made the pledge, it was a third of what I had. Over three years, I gave away half of what I had. Usually people wait until the end of their life to do that -- the check is the last thing they sign before the priest comes to say goodbye. But I was in my 50s. It was scary. There’s nothing worse than being old and broke.”

To spend his billion dollars wisely, he chose Timothy E. Wirth, the former senator from Colorado, whom Turner had known from the days when he was a young cable TV entrepreneur hoping to take on the networks and Wirth served on the House telecommunications subcommittee.

Today, they’re working to take on global goliaths. Turner and Wirth chose to mirror the United Nations’ own millennium priorities: children’s health; women and population; the environment; and peace, security and human rights.

A little at a time, the foundation has given more than 350 grants designed to teach people how to improve their lives, instead of using the money as a short-term fix. The programs include health care for Afghan mothers, education for Bangladeshi girls, legal training in Latin America and help for African women with HIV/AIDS.

Turner also joined with fellow philanthropist Bill Gates, UNICEF and other agencies in a campaign to eliminate polio and measles, and they predict that in three years, polio will be wiped out.

Turner and Wirth run their foundation as tightly as a business, with a bare-bones bureaucracy and low overhead. They follow up the programs’ performance and put together new partnerships. It’s a new form of giving that has paved the way for other billionaires, like Gates, to more effectively share the wealth and has attracted $150 million in additional grants from groups such as the David and Lucile Packard Foundation to be funneled through the U.N. Foundation.

For an encore, two years ago Turner whipped out his checkbook again to solve a long-running dispute over what the United Nations said the U.S. owed the world body and what Congress was willing to pay. With then-U.S. Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, he worked out a last-minute compromise: Turner would contribute the $30-plus-million difference, and the U.N. would adjust the percentage and timing of Washington’s dues payments.

“The U.N.-U.S. relationship is sounder than it’s ever been,” said Wirth.