'Three Cups of Tea' Author Tries to Shoot Down '60 Minutes' Allegations

Greg Mortenson, the embattled best-selling author of "Three Cups of Tea," and the board of directors of his charity are fighting back against allegations made by CBS' "60 Minutes" that he made up or embellished some of his famous stories.

CBS also reported that Mortenson spent more of the money raised by the charity promoting his books and speaking engagements in the United States than on philanthropy overseas.

Mortenson and his charity, the Central Asia Institute, responded to the accusations on their website, and Mortenson sent an email to supporters saying CBS distorted the truth.



"The '60 Minutes' program may appear to ask simple questions, but the answers are often complex, not easily encapsulated in 10-second soundbites," said Mortenson, 53.

The Sunday night broadcast questioned accounts that Mortenson, a mountaineer turned humanitarian, has given of the experiences that led him to write two books and form a philanthropic organization that funds schools in remote areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan. His other book is called "Stones Into Schools."

The Central Asia Institute has attracted $60 million in donations, including $100,000 given by President Barack Obama from his Nobel Peace Prize fee.

The report implied that Mortenson may have made up one of his original stories about being cared for by remote villagers in Korphe, northeastern Pakistan, after a failed climb up K2 in 1993 -- and that he was never abducted, as he claimed, by the Taliban in 1996.

One of Mortenson's earliest supporters, author and mountaineer Jon Krakauer, said that Mortenson didn't stumble into Korphe. Krakauer says he spoke to one of Mortenson's companions, and Mortenson had never heard of Korphe until a year later.

Steve Kroft's report on "60 Minutes" also highlighted the way Mortenson's charity uses the millions of dollars it has raised.

"It was clear that the program's disrespectful approach would not result in a fair, balanced or objective representation of our work, my books or our vital mission," Mortenson said in an email to his supporters, the New York Daily News reported.

But some of his rebuttal appeared to dig the hole he is in even deeper, such as his explanation that some of his accounts might be called into question because the local dialect, Balti, doesn't allow for Western concepts of "time" or past and present tenses.

He told his local newspaper, the Bozeman Chronicle, that perceptions that he had lied or misled the public would harm the poor girls he has been trying to help in Afghanistan and Pakistan more than they would even hurt him.

"I hope these allegations and attacks, the people doing these things, know this could be devastating for tens of thousands of girls," he told the Chronicle.

As a result of the CBS revelations, Viking, the publisher of "Three Cups of Tea," said today it planned a "careful" review of the facts presented in the book, The New York Times reported.

"Greg Mortenson's work as a humanitarian in Afghanistan and Pakistan has provided tens of thousands of children with an education," Carolyn Coleburn, a spokeswoman for Viking, said in a statement.

"60 Minutes is a serious news organization, and in the wake of their report, Viking plans to carefully review the materials with the author."

One of the key questions raised by the CBS program involved discrepancies in Mortenson's story, a cornerstone of "Three Cups of Tea," about what happened after he failed a climb up K2, the world's second-largest mountain, in 1993.

Mortenson wrote in his book that he got separated from the rest of his team and stumbled into the village of Korphe in northeast Pakistan, where he was nursed back to health by villagers.

Because of their care and hospitality, Mortenson vowed to return to build the village a school.

Kroft's months-long investigation seemed to indicate that Mortenson never stepped foot in Korphe until 1994.

Mortenson's official response to the program included a statement that he had indeed "visited" Korphe in 1993 and tried to explain away apparent discrepancies by saying he had written a "compressed version of events."

He also wrote that he had been kidnapped by the Taliban in the Waziristan tribal lands between Pakistan and Afghanistan in 1996 and detained in a makeshift prison by Kalashnikov-toting guards for eight days.

Mortenson even provided a photo of his alleged captors. But CNN and other news organizations reported today that one of the alleged kidnappers in Mortenson's photo is Mansur Khan Mahsud, who runs a Pakistani think tank and is a specialist in the country's tribal regions.

Mahsud told CNN today that Mortenson's claims were "a pack of lies and not a single word of it is true." He said Mortenson was not kidnapped but rather treated as "an honored guest."
"We were his protector in South Waziristan," Mahsud said.

Mortenson says he has built more than 140 schools, mostly for girls. But CBS visited or checked 30 schools cited by the Central Asia Institute and found that roughly half were either empty, built by someone else or not receiving support at all.

Mortenson also told CBS that some of the accusations against him may stem from a disgruntled former manager in Pakistan.