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r. Turner has made many donations to charitable organizations over the years. In 1994 alone he contributed $200 million to charitable organizations. His most notable, however, was his donation in September, 1997 of $1 billion dollars to a new foundation established to help support the United Nations. To put this in perspective, "all charitable giving by Americans in 1996 was approximately $120 billion." Turner has come under a lot of scrutiny because the large amount of money he gave. Also adding to the controversy was that Turner criticized other millionaires for not repaying their debt to society. In a 1996 New York Times interview he said, "All the money is in the hands of these few rich people and none of them give any money away. It’s dangerous for them and the country. We may have another French Revolution and ther’ll be another madame Defarge knitting and watching them come in little oxcarts down to the town square and BOOM! Off with their heads!" Ted believes that Forbes magazine’s richest Americans list is spoiling our country because the rich try to get richer just to get higher on Forbes’ list. When ABC's John Stossell suggested to Turner that he should stick to being an entrepreneur and that his donations probably wouldn’t go very far, Turner looked at Stossel like he was crazy. Turner, himself, said that his father would help "less affluent students, he would pay their way to college. They wouldn’t even know he did it. He did it quiet." So Ted seems to follow in his father’s footsteps. His foundation gives financial help to over 400 organizations.The Goodwill Games were Ted’s brainchild as well. He thought that by starting the games, it would warm relations between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. during the Cold War.