?Nigel Pritchard，CNN's head of international public relations，who is sitting beside me，has prepared a memo outlining some things his boss might like to consider not saying．It politely suggests that he might steer clear of talking about AOL Time Warner，and，specifically，he might like to avoid reference to that Rhode Island speech．Turner is notorious for doing as he pleases．Early in his career，he made a pitch wearing no clothes to advertising executives；later，he went to Cuba to get Fidel Castro to tape a promotional slot for CNN．

 He has various worldsaving projects：from preventing the extinction of the Chiricahua leopard frog in the wilds of New Mexico to founding an influential nuclear non－proliferation institute．Turner really does seem to see himself as locked in a personal battle against apocalypse．He doesn't just give money：his staff are sometimes taken aback to see him skulking in the streets nearby，picking up litter．

    坐在我身边的CNN国际公共关系负责人奈杰尔·普里查德准备了一份备忘录，提醒自己的老板最好留意不要涉及的一些事情，该备忘录委婉地提醒老板避免谈及美国在线-时代华纳公司，特别是不要提及罗德岛的那次演讲。特纳的我行我素是出了名的。在事业的早期，他曾经赤身裸体作宣传。后来，他又跑到古巴，让菲德尔·卡斯特罗为CNN录制一档宣传节目。

　  从防止新墨西哥州野外的奇里卡瓦豹蛙灭绝，到创立一个有影响力的核不扩散协会，特纳有各种各样的拯救世界的计划。他似乎真的认为自己身处一场阻止大灾难的个人战斗中。他不只是出钱，有时他的下属会吃惊地发现他在附近的街道上偷偷摸摸地捡垃圾。

 When Turner gave his first billion to the UN，he dropped 67 laces on the Forbes 500 rich list，out of the top 10 for ever．（His fortune now stands at$ 3.8 bn．）

  It isn't hard to see how Turner's childhood might have instilled this sense of permanent crisis，of desperate insecurity，behind the frenzied activity that is his trademark．His father，from whom he inherited an advertising business that he turned into CNN，was prone to fits of rage，and beat him with a coathanger；he committed suicide when Turner was24．Even before that，his younger sister had died from an immune disease when she was 12，and Ted was sent to a boarding school he hated．His father，he has said，not without admiration，believed that instilling insecurity in his son would help him to achieve．All in all，Turner seems to have been a well-qualified candidate for total psychic collapse．"But when everything goes wrong，"he says today，"you can either give up or you can try to fight．I tried to fight．"

? 特纳向联合国捐助了第一笔10亿美元后，就从《福布斯》杂志评出的全球最富有的500人排行榜上下跌了67个位置，从此永远与前10名无缘。（他目前的财产为38亿美元。）