Flirting with Danger (8 page)

While working, I made friends with many of the unusual characters who turned up at CNN. Christiane Amanpour, who later
became a star correspondent, was one of my first friends in Atlanta with a common background in Europe. We had both traveled extensively, and we commiserated over the provinciality of the place and our inability to find a decent croissant or bagel. Christiane was a secretary then, but she was ambitious, and willing to work hard for a chance at being a correspondent, giving up her vacation time to cover stories. Her determination eventually paid off.

My career at CNN was also blossoming. Because the company was young, it was easy to move up the ranks. Speaking Russian helped propel me from my lowly job logging tape to the International Assignment Desk, where overseas coverage was coordinated. I spent most of my time on the phone with reporters who were out chasing stories. We would work out how and when they would get their material sent by satellite or shipment to Atlanta from whatever far-flung location they were covering. I would listen to their adventures, marveling at how they had arrived at some ferry crash or student riot and filed a story within hours. I longed to trade places with them. I was again on the overnight shift, but I decided the best way to ever do what they did was to learn how to be a producer, so I started coming in during the daytime as well to train. Before long I had my first job as a producer, working on what was simultaneously the world’s most boring and most fascinating news program. It was called
World Report
, a show in which few others at CNN were interested. But it was perfect for me.

A creation of CNN chairman Ted Turner,
World Report
invited broadcasters from countries all over the world to send reports to CNN each week, talking about their countries from their own perspectives. Instead of the usual CNN reporting, where a staff correspondent, often an American, drops into a country to become an instant “expert,” these were stories from native reporters. It might sound like an obvious idea, but it was quite unusual. Most news
organizations rely heavily on their journalists, who know how to prepare news for their audience, and CNN is no exception. The broadcasts that came into
World Report
were often unpolished and raw, and sometimes they simply represented the view of a government, since many news organizations in small or poor countries are state-run. Many of my colleagues at CNN felt that
World Report
was being used as a propaganda device for third-world countries. And some were certainly doing that. But no matter how heavy-handed the reporting was, it was an opportunity to hear a different perspective. Even if the reports were loaded with propaganda, there was often an interesting story within. And some were just plain funny. I thought
World Report
was visionary, one of CNN’s greatest strengths. I enjoyed having access to unpopular views from pariah nations around the world, and I thought it an important symbol of CNN as a forward-thinking, global station. The job felt like a gift, tailor-made for my sensibilities.

For the years I worked on the show, I used to joke to friends that I was one of the best-informed people in the world. I knew more than anyone else about Zimbabwe’s irrigation projects or Turkey’s eczema-eating fish or Bahrain’s famous hair-dancers. We aired everything without discrimination. Thailand’s first contribution to the program was about a successful penis transplant. The Afghans would begin each report, “Dear Imperialist Viewers …” We took reports from places nobody else recognized as sovereign nations, like the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.

At the time, the show was treated like an unwanted stepchild at CNN. Many of the network’s bigwigs were embarrassed by it because the reports weren’t flashy or well produced and featured bedraggled-looking reporters with strongly accented or broken English. It was not exactly a ratings draw. But it attracted a cult following of news-hounds looking for the exotic and bizarre, and information that
was unsanitized by the normal Americanization of news. It was an opportunity to discover how other cultures saw themselves. When Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990 and the United States, Britain, and other Western allies attacked Baghdad, it was a great outlet for opinions from the Middle East that ran contrary to those coming out of the State Department. But I had to fight to keep the show on the air during some of those weeks, since some producers didn’t consider Jordanian or Iraqi TV’s views appropriate. Like a protective mother, I argued that there was hardly a more appropriate time to hear the other side.

I also loved the motley crew of broadcasters from all over the world who used to traipse through Atlanta and visit us. I often found myself making dinner for a Vietnamese TV reporter or a Malaysian cameraman who was passing through, and that gave me a taste of international life in the heart of the American South.

At this point, I was still trying to figure out what to do with my Russian husband, and I ruled out other men from my life.

Except for the boss. Ted Turner was larger and louder than your average man. He is one of those people who fills up an enormous space with his presence because he is so alive. I saw him charge through the newsroom a few times and always wondered what he was like. One day he noticed me too as he passed by my cubicle. A few minutes later his secretary was on the line telling me Ted wanted to speak to me. “Have dinner with me,” ordered a booming voice.

I was shocked by the call and afraid to go out with him. Dating the boss is dangerous in any company. But Ted, who is persuasive and determined, wouldn’t take no for an answer. I agreed to lunch.

Ted was between marriages at the time, and he liked the fact that I worked on his favorite show. It turned out we had a lot in common. We both loved Russia. I admired the way he wanted to try to
tell all sides of a story, even the most unpopular side. He might have made billions of dollars with his global vision, but his values were down home. He really thought he could help the world with his network. He wasn’t interested in news that was merely titillating or sensational. I loved the way he believed that he helped bring about an end to the Cold War by improving communication between Russia and the United States through CNN and the Goodwill Games. And I loved the way he lived by his own rules. He decided the Ten Commandments were out of date, that people didn’t like to be commanded to do anything, so he wrote up his own Ten Voluntary Initiatives and would spout them as an alternative at speaking engagements. Ted and I also shared a love of nature and wild animals. He taught me to fly-fish, to recognize the mournful wail of a sandhill crane, and to spot an elk herd on one of the vast expanses of land he bought to save space for the creatures who belonged there. He cares about the earth and its fate as much as anyone I’ve ever met. Ted would weep over an oil spill as if it had soiled his own backyard, suffer at word of a new war breaking out as if it were a rift in his own family. His shoulders seemed big enough to take on the world’s pain. Mine weren’t.

Ted was romantic and brilliant. But it was a full-time job being with him. And we were at different stages of life. Ted was fifty, already had five children, and was looking for a full-time companion. I was twenty-nine and had my career and children still ahead of me. “How about a baby white rhino to bring up instead?” Ted once said, when we were talking about children. “They’re rare but I think I could get you one.” I often felt like I needed a vacation after I took a vacation with Ted. It was like going to boot camp. Up at six to go fly-fishing, and a hike before lunch. Then he’d have a horseback ride planned or more fishing in the afternoon. Every minute was accounted for and he always wanted to stick to the regimen, hating
changes to his schedule. And it wasn’t exactly relaxing hiking or fishing, because following Ted’s train of thought required more than average mental agility. Ted had a hundred ideas a day on how to make the world better. He took his wealth and influence seriously, knowing they gave him the opportunity to affect things. It was almost as if he were the only one strong enough to do it.

To me, though, it was exhausting to worry constantly about saving the world. I had plenty of my own problems. With him, I sometimes felt robbed of my own thoughts. It was such a relief when he fell asleep for a few minutes in his Gulfstream jet as we were flying from one ranch to another. I would be so happy just to sit and stare out the window or do a crossword, alone with my own thoughts. My brain may have been no match for his, but I did miss it. Ted wanted love and intimacy more than anything. But he wanted it so badly he couldn’t seem to let it grow naturally with us. I sometimes felt he did not really know me and often tried to force me in a direction I did not want to go, like fishing. For my thirtieth birthday, I wanted to go to his place in Big Sur, California, to see the sea lions play off the Pacific Coast. Instead I found myself knee-deep in the Galatin River in Montana, having fly-fishing lessons. Lucky for me, the burly Montana native hired to teach me was getting a philosophy degree. We spent a lazy morning on the river discussing books and barely touching on flies.

Ted and I had a fight on that trip, walking in the mountains on his property, listening for elk and watching for bears. Ted wanted me to spend more time with him, but I felt a responsibility to my show, where I was a producer.

“I’ll call your boss and fix it for you,” Ted said. “Hell, I am your boss.”

One phone call from Ted could destroy my credibility as a journalist, and I made him promise not to call anyone in that company
about me. Of course, I liked knowing I could wield that kind of power, but I knew it would be better if I did not use it.

“How are we supposed to spend any time together?” he asked.

“Maybe we just can’t,” I told him.

But Ted hated the thought of anyone leaving him, be it a secretary or a girlfriend, and would not accept no. I was furious and stormed off into the dusky wilderness. After stumbling along for a while, fuming so intently that I did not look where I was going, I found myself alone on top of a mountain in the middle of nowhere. There was nobody around except, perhaps, a few brown bears. I felt helpless and scared and started shouting Ted’s name. Standing up to him took a lot out of me, and I had pushed and fought hard to make a break with him, but now that I succeeded, I was petrified and lost. Ted’s black Labrador, Sonny, found me about an hour later, a very long hour when I didn’t know if I’d be found. Ted had been about to organize a helicopter search.

Our relief at finding each other patched over the rift for a while, but no matter how afraid I had been on that mountain, I knew I had to go my own way. However, the more he sensed my unavailability, the more he wooed me. He once sent his plane to bring me down from Atlanta to his Florida plantation. It was a grand old Southern mansion fit for Scarlett, and that night Ted fancied himself Rhett Butler. He opened the twelve-foot doors of the columned white mansion in a silk smoking jacket, with the theme from
Gone with the Wind
playing on the stereo. He even has a Rhett Butler mustache and a rougish quality.

After the fight on the mountain, we made a deal about my job: he was to keep out of my career, and I would stay with him. In a way, having Ted in my back pocket was like a nuclear deterrent. Everyone at CNN knew he was there, but I knew it was best if I never unleashed him. People who worked with me knew how hard
I worked, but I knew that others assumed I got ahead at the company because I was Ted’s girlfriend. In the end, I concluded that Ted and I met at the wrong time in my life: my sense of self was still too fragile to get along with such a giant ego. But it was good for me to learn that money, power, and fame weren’t what I was looking for in a mate. It was character-building for a girl who had grown up on food stamps to walk away from a billionaire. I felt I would never thrive or grow in the shadow of that enormous presence.

When I finally split with Ted, my mother was relieved. “He’s unsuitable,” she said on the phone to me. “I know a good mother would push you into this, but I just think you’ll be miserable.” My mother inherently distrusted anyone who made a lot of money, even if they were nice to animals. Ted has remained a friend. He and Jane Fonda, whom he later married, were both generous with me, often sharing their wisdom and experience.

Soon after Ted and I stopped seeing each other, I met a young intern named Alessio at the copy machine—from chairman to intern. Alessio had chiseled good looks, the light features of a northern Italian, and a gentle nature. He had come from Italy to spend a few months at CNN. I helped teach him how to produce a show. In exchange, he taught me to roller-skate. We spent lots of lazy days wandering around Atlanta’s Piedmont Park and evenings cooking together. At first it didn’t occur to me that I was falling in love with him; he was just barely a man. One weekend I invited him to go to the beach with me. When he sat down behind me on the sand and pulled me close to him I could feel how much I wanted him as a lover. But I felt like a jaded older woman and worried whether he’d even know what to do. A few hours later he dispelled my fears.

I was thirty; Alessio was twenty-one. I never expected our relationship to last more than a few weeks, and I think we stayed together
much longer because I had no expectations of him. I never believed it would work out, so I never took the relationship seriously enough to get scared. Of the two of us, in many ways he was the older and wiser. He was far more domesticated than I. One of the first things he did after moving in with me was get us matching silverware. Alessio believed in living well. He loved to quote his father: “Americans don’t eat; they feed themselves. They don’t dress; they cover themselves.” He taught me how to make a home. He brought me cappuccino in bed every morning. When he carried the TV and VCR into the bathroom during my bubble bath, I knew this was a man who understood me.

Life with Alessio in Atlanta had a dreamlike quality. It was the first time in my life that I felt truly happy. Alessio loved companionship, loved being in a couple. We had endless silly nicknames for each other and wore matching clothes. The days and nights rolled into each other as we snuggled, took baths together, and had comfortable sex. The only plans we ever made were for our next meal.