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His gift is earmarked for nonadministrative programs, and Turner says he hopes it will boost popular support for the U.N. "It's the organization that has the most reach and the most influence and is doing the most good," he notes. The U.N. has been going through hard times lately, battling bankruptcy and contemplating layoffs, in part because the U.S. is as much as $1.5 billion behind in its dues--more than the organization's entire annual budget. Before deciding on the gift, Turner says, he considered a more unorthodox approach: buying the outstanding U.S. debt from the U.N. and then going to Congress and demanding to be paid, threatening to sue if Congress continued to balk. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who called Turner last week to thank him, was quick to applaud the gift. "I think this reflects not only Ted Turner's brilliant approach to solv[ing] problems," she said, but also "how the American people feel about the value of the United Nations." Turner has promised to help raise more money for the organization through the U.N. Foundation, a new charitable organization he intends to set up as a conduit for his gift.
Rather than giving the $1 billion in a lump sum, Turner is setting aside that amount in Time Warner stock to support 10 gifts of $100 million each over the course of a decade. The actual gifts may or may not be made in stock, and their value will be less than $1 billion if Time Warner stock falls in value. (Last Friday the stock closed at $55.25 a share, near its all-time high.) Many of the details of the donation, including its tax benefits to Turner, have yet to be worked out. "I don't even know what the tax breaks are," says Turner. "I haven't considered them." His casual style of giving has not made things easy for his financial advisers. "They haven't really had time to do much more than say, 'Please don't say too much until we can work this out,'" he adds. But even though they may have wanted him to move more cautiously, Turner says he was intent on making the announcement at last week's dinner. "I couldn't wait, because I had the whole United Nations there and all their supporters. I was kind of winging it a little bit."
--With reporting by Aixa M. Pascual/New York