Ted Turner in Memoriam

Ted Turner, founder of CNN, has died in the United States at the age of 87.

While working in Washington, D. C. in 1980s as Bureau Chief of Izvestia I took part in half a dozen talk shows at CNN Crossfire program, debating Soviet-American relations with US politicians, journalists, and political scientists.

Turner was one of those American citizens who were perceived in the USSR as people with common sense. Son of a billboard magnate who by himself achieved resounding success in business and became a billionaire, he earned the “Captain Outrageous” nickname for his actions and statements like, “Forbes‘ list of America’s richest people is destroying our country.”

I first saw him in person in 1983, when he held a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D. C. and criticized Reagan’s policy of escalating international tensions. Back then, there was a powerful anti-war movement in the United States, supported by many prominent scientists, Hollywood stars, municipalities in dozens of cities, including Chicago, politicians, plus personalities like former CIA Director William Colby and retired Admiral Gene LaRocque.

Turner never abandoned his pacifist convictions. At the beginning of the third millennium, he and Senator Sam Nunn founded the nonprofit Nuclear Threat Initiative, which sought to prevent a catastrophe involving nuclear and chemical weapons.

And in 1986, Turner initiated the Goodwill Games in Moscow as a practical measure to reduce the threat of World War III. Upon learning that for this purpose he was planning to come to Washington (Turner lived in the southern United States), I arranged an interview with him for the Soviet Sport daily through his press secretary.

Here’s what Turner shared with me then, before we discussed the Goodwill Games:
“As soon as I had the idea to organize such a competition, I contacted your Embassy, and they invited me to a meeting with your diplomat in charge of such matters. On the appointed day, I pulled up to your mission building on 16th Street in Washington, got out of the limousine, looked up, and saw the red flag with the hammer and sickle fluttering above the Embassy roof. Believe it or not, my legs gave way beneath me, and everything swam before my eyes…”

Turner never gave anyone any cause to call him a weakling. He was a skilled sailor and won the prestigious America’s Cup.

Seeing the look on my face, he explained:
“I was born and raised in the southern United States in an extremely conservative environment. During World War II, my father served in the Navy, and from childhood I was instilled with a visceral fear of the ‘Reds.’ In my family discussions and at Sunday church services I used to hear that the red flag symbolized the blood of victims of communists, who slit people’s throats with sickles and crushed their skulls with hammers. This was so deeply ingrained in my mind that, when I approached your embassy for the first time, I, a 46-year-old man, nearly fainted.”