Half of the $1 billion Turner pledged in 1997 has already been given. The rest was supposed to be paid out over the next five years, but the board overseeing the donation decided this summer to spread that last $500 million over another decade.
``I went from no money to a pile of money as big as the World Trade Center, and then just like the World Trade Center, poof, it was gone overnight,'' he said Wednesday. ``That's terrible.''
Turner's personal worth, mostly wrapped up in AOL-Time Warner stock, has dwindled from around $8 billion to about $1.6 billion, according to some published estimates.
``Hopefully, I'm going to make another fortune. I've started a restaurant chain. It's hard to make money in the restaurant business,'' he said, with a big laugh. ``But I'm going to try to make another fortune to replace the one I lost so I can maybe give more later. But at least we're pretty well set for the next 10 years if things don't get worse.''
The founder of CNN, who is the largest individual benefactor of the United Nations, spoke at a news conference ahead of a VIP lunch celebrating the fifth anniversary of the United Nations Foundation, which he founded in 1997, pledging $1 billion over 10 years.
Turner said that represented about a third of his fortune at the time, which he called ``a lot for someone in his 50s,'' noting that most people usually give away large sums of money in their 70s ``before the priest comes to say goodbye.''
``It's easy to fall in love with money. Some won't part with it under any circumstances. It's like trying to pry a manhole cover with a knife to get money out of them,'' he said.
But Turner said he had no regrets about spending his first fortune.
``I love the U.N. I've loved it since I was a boy. I know it's hard to love something like this, but I love it,'' he said. ``A global organization that's organized with the purpose of making the world a better place how can you not like it? And to be of some service and try to help out is the greatest honor that I've ever had.''
At the luncheon and the news conference, Turner described how he came up with the idea of helping the United Nations in a big way while thinking about a speech he had to give accepting an award from the United Nations Association of the USA.
``I said how about a cool billion,'' Turner recalled.
The United Nations was in a cash crunch in 1997, with the United States not paying its dues, so he decided to help solve their financial problems. But he discovered he couldn't give money directly to the world body because he wasn't a government.
``So I said, `Oh, thank God, I can't give it ... so I can keep my money. I went to bed that night at the Waldorf and I tossed and turned all night. First I felt real good about not having to do it. Then, I started feeling `giver's remorse,' you could call it, that I couldn't do it,'' he recalled.
He got up and decided there had to be a way. He considered buying an island and creating a state ``the state of confusion,'' he joked.
But instead, he decided to create the foundation which in the past five years has committed a little over $500 million to U.N. projects focusing on the environment, population, women, children's health, peace, security, human rights and promoting the United Nations in the United States.
The remaining $500 million was to be spent in the next five years, but the board, which Turner chairs, decided this summer to spend it over the next 10 years instead.
``This was very easy for us to do,'' said foundation president Timothy Wirth, because the foundation is also engaged in fundraising ``so we're raising about a dollar for every one of Mr. Turner's dollars that we're using.''
That means the foundation will still have about $100 million a year, he said.
http://accesswdun.com/article/2002/12/201751