Three Cups of Tea disputed

It's so easy to judge from the comfort of a computer screen whether about guiding or trying to do some good in some of the poorest and most corrupt and dangerous countries in the world. I think more compassion is called for in both cases.

Mortenson, in particular, consistently failed to comply with either commonly accepted business practices or CAI’s policy manual with respect to documenting expenses charged on CAI’s accounts. The issue was repeatedly raised through the years. Board members testified that despite requests, cajoling, demands and admonitions, they were unsuccessful in getting Mortenson to submit proper documentation to support the charges he was making to the charity...

The more significant issue was not simply compliance with expense reimbursement and documentation policies, but the nature and magnitude of charges for which inadequate documentation exists. Through the years, Mortenson charged substantial personal expenses to CAI. These include expenses for such things as LL Bean clothing, iTunes, luggage, luxurious accommodations, and even vacations...

The board’s history and testimony from certain members, however, supports a conclusion that there was a deliberate effort to put people who are loyal to Mortenson on the board. The three board members who resigned in 2002 were effectively ousted, based on tensions and conflict that had developed with Mortenson. Meeting minutes show Hornbein, the board chair, and Wiltsie, the board treasurer, repeatedly asked for documentation to prove that CAI was getting a positive return on the money Mortenson was spending. Hornbein in particular requested itemized lists of Mortenson’s travel expenses, of the money coming in, and of contacts being made. He also advocated for phasing out Mortenson’s role in overseeing daily operations. In short, the board members who resigned were essentially trying to perform the kinds of oversight functions expected of boards of directors for organizations such as CAI.

He went down before his clients got into trouble. He didn't need oxygen. Big difference!

After I pointed out in Three Cups of Deceit that it would have been impossible for him to reach Korphe by the route he described above, Mortenson abandoned that story in favor of an entirely different one. In this new account (written by CAI Communications Director Karin Ronnow, and published in CAI’s annual magazine, Journey of Hope, in November 2011), Mortenson didn’t make a wrong turn “two hours before Askole.” Instead, he continued down the obvious trail to Askole and then, immediately before entering that village, inexplicably took a sharp turn to the left and walked across a little-known suspension bridge, which he then neglected to mention over the years that followed.

In 2012, Mortenson traveled to Korphe for the first time in several years. During this visit, according to a Korphe native, Mortenson invited all the residents of Korphe, Testay Dass, and a nearby settlement known as Tinu to a feast. While the villagers were eating, he offered five hundred Pakistani rupees—slightly less than five dollars—to anyone who would testify there was a temporary bridge across the Braldu River at Testay Dass in 1993. “The temptation is big,” explains a woman whose husband is from Korphe. “This is the thing. Life in Baltistan is so hard.”

Fast-forward to the summer of 2013. Mortenson returned to Korphe with a two-person film crew from Utah: Jennifer Jordan, the director, and her husband, videographer Jeff Rhoads. On her website, Jordan describes Mortenson as “her friend and colleague.” She and Rhoads had accompanied him to Baltistan to make a documentary titled 3000 Cups of Tea, which was intended to refute the allegations made by 60 Minutes and me about Mortenson’s lack of probity. Before their departure, Mortenson told Jordan he would introduce her to local men who would testify on camera that they witnessed Mortenson cross the Braldu River in 1993. And sure enough, as promised, when Jordan and Rhoads arrived in Baltistan they were taken to interview two individuals who told them exactly what they had traveled so far to hear.

In February 2014, after her return to Utah, Jordan sent me an e-mail requesting that I sit down with her to do an on-camera interview for her film. When I asked several pointed questions to help me decide whether I could trust her to accurately represent my views, she refused to answer them. She assured me, however, “t is my job as a journalist and filmmaker to investigate the story, no matter where it leads.… I do not have an agenda here.”

Three weeks later, on March 13, Jordan posted a tendentious seven-minute trailer on the Internet to raise money for 3000 Cups of Tea. When the trailer initially went online, it opened with a montage of video clips, each only five to ten seconds long, of various talking heads delivering withering criticisms of 60 Minutes and me while a mournful dirge played in the background. Among the individuals featured in this opening montage were Mortenson’s wife, Tara Bishop, fighting back tears of anger; an outraged Abdul Jabbar, the former CAI board chairman who was forced to resign by the Montana attorney general; and Marvin Kalb, the distinguished television correspondent, author, and news anchor, speaking with concern about the sins of present-day journalists. The montage was skillfully edited to lead viewers to believe that each of these individuals considers the 60 Minutes Mortenson exposé to be reprehensible. On March 23, however, a new iteration of the trailer replaced the first version, and in this revised version the clip of Marvin Kalb had been deleted.

It turns out that the clip vanished as a result of an e-mail Kalb sent to Jordan on March 21. They had been friends since the late 1980s, when Kalb was director of the Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, and Jordan was director of the Forum—the Kennedy School’s prestigious venue for public speakers. The subject line of Kalb’s e-mail to Jordan read, “unhappy.” The body of the message explained,

When you first called asking for an interview, I told you I had not seen the 60 Minutes piece and therefore could not comment on it…. Weeks later, you sent me a video copy of a fundraising trailer, which had no mention of me in it, no image of me in it, and now I see another version of that same trailer, which does include me…. Now I am used in a video fundraising trailer, and in a context that puts me in criticism of a broadcast that I told you I had not seen and therefore could not comment on.
The current, revised version of the trailer is exactly the same as the original, minus the footage of Kalb…

n 2012, Mortenson traveled to Korphe for the first time in several years. During this visit, according to a Korphe native, Mortenson invited all the residents of Korphe, Testay Dass, and a nearby settlement known as Tinu to a feast. While the villagers were eating, he offered five hundred Pakistani rupees—slightly less than five dollars—to anyone who would testify there was a temporary bridge across the Braldu River at Testay Dass in 1993. “The temptation is big,” explains a woman whose husband is from Korphe. “This is the thing. Life in Baltistan is so hard.”