Evidence that “Three Cups of Tea” author is a fraud is heart-breaking

Anyone who has read and enjoyed the best-seller “Three Cups of Tea” by Greg Mortenson, myself included, has to be sick to their stomach today after a CBS News “60 Minutes” report showed that he is apparently a fraud, if not a con man.

For those who are not familiar with the book, Mortenson, a mountain climber, began building schools for impoverished children in the mountainous regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan while he operated on a shoe-string budget. As he lived a life of very modest means in Montana, he built a non-profit foundation from the ground up and made countless trips back to Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Mortenson also tells some harrowing tales in his book about barely surviving a climbing expedition on the world’s second-tallest peak, consistently facing life-and-death situations while in the process of building schools, and surviving an 8-day kidnapping by the Taliban.

But now, in the words of one of his earliest financial supporters, much of Mortenson’s story is “a lie.”

For Mortenson fans, the information uncovered by “60 Minutes” is just beyond the imagination: his Central Asia Institute has not built 140 schools, as he claims; finance reports indicate that Mortenson siphoned millions of dollars from the fund to support his travel expenses, including private jets, and to promote his two books; his speaking fees have risen to $30,000 per event; and some of the schools cited by Mortenson are either empty, lacking Central Asia Institute support, or don’t exist.

As for “Three Cups of Tea,” which sold 4 million copies, CBS did a good job of showing that some of the key stories in the book are fabricated or highly exaggerated. The 8-day ordeal with the Taliban, for example, apparently never happened.

Sources for the “60 Minutes” story include former staffers and board members at the institute who quit due to financial improprieties, former financial supporters, charity watchdog groups, and even some of the Afghans and Pakistanis that Mortenson claims as assistants or enemies.

Perhaps the most devastating aspect of the report was Mortenson’s pathetic attempts at dodging interview requests with “60 Minutes.”

Again, this is just heart-wrenching stuff.

Beyond his fame, Mortenson had become a trusted adviser to America’s top generals and his book was mandatory reading for troops heading to Afghanistan. Gen. David Petraeus was a fan and made many appearances with Mortenson.

When Barack Obama gave Mortenson’s foundation $100,000 in 2009 from the president’s Nobel Peace Prize winnings, I thought the truly dignified response by Obama, given the circumstances, would have been to decline the Nobel Prize and give it to Mortenson.

You can read more about Mortenson’s sudden downfall here at The Daily Beast, which reports that many in the philanthropic community have held suspicions about Mortenson’s finances for years.