Olivia: Most people think a hero's journey starts with a grand vision. But what if one of the most celebrated humanitarian missions of our time began with total, abject failure? A man, lost and freezing on a glacier, about to make a promise that would change everything. Jackson: That's a dramatic start. You're talking about Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Fight Terrorism and Build Nations... One School at a Time by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin. Olivia: Exactly. And what's fascinating is that Mortenson wasn't a policy expert or a developer; he was a nurse and a mountain climber. The book, co-written with journalist David Oliver Relin, became a phenomenon, staying on the bestseller list for four years. It was even required reading for US troops deploying to Afghanistan. Jackson: Wow, required reading for the military. That's some serious influence. So it clearly struck a chord. Olivia: It did, because it presented a powerful, alternative way to fight extremism. But the story of the book itself is as dramatic and complicated as Mortenson's journey.

Olivia: It all begins in 1993. Mortenson is on K2, the second-highest mountain in the world. But he's not there to save the world. He's there to honor his late sister, Christa. He's carrying her amber necklace, and his plan is to leave it at the summit as a tribute. Jackson: Okay, so this is a deeply personal quest from the very beginning. It's not about geopolitics; it's about grief and memory. Olivia: Precisely. But the mountain has other plans. The expedition is grueling. After more than 70 days on K2, during the final push to the summit, a fellow climber gets sick with life-threatening pulmonary edema. Mortenson and his teammate, Scott Darsney, abandon their summit attempt to help with a 75-hour rescue mission. Jackson: Seventy-five hours? At that altitude, that must have been absolutely brutal. That alone is heroic. Olivia: It completely drained them. They saved the man's life, but Mortenson's own goal was lost. He was physically and emotionally shattered. On his way down the mountain, exhausted and disoriented, he takes a wrong turn and gets separated from his porter. He ends up spending a night alone on the Baltoro Glacier, with no tent, no sleeping bag, just the clothes on his back. Jackson: Hold on, so he's completely lost, alone, and exposed on one of the world's largest glaciers after failing his life's tribute to his sister. That’s about as low as a person can get. Olivia: It's the absolute bottom. He wakes up with his face literally frozen to a rock. He's dehydrated, defeated. But as he starts walking, trying to find his way, he stumbles not toward the town he was aiming for, but down a different path. He follows the sound of a river and eventually sees signs of life—apricot orchards. Jackson: And this is where he finds the village? Olivia: This is where he stumbles into Korphe, a remote, impoverished Balti village completely cut off from the modern world. He's a total stranger, a foreigner, looking half-dead. And the village chief, a man named Haji Ali, takes one look at him and welcomes him in. Jackson: That's incredible. No suspicion, just hospitality? Olivia: Pure hospitality. This is where the book's title comes from. Haji Ali explains a Balti custom to him later: "The first time you share tea with a Balti, you are a stranger. The second time you take tea, you are an honored guest. The third time you share a cup of tea, you become family." Jackson: I love that. It’s about building relationships before anything else. It’s a philosophy of connection. Olivia: And Mortenson experiences this firsthand. The villagers nurse him back to health. He spends weeks there, recovering. And one day, he sees something that changes his life. He sees the village children gathered on a windswept ledge, trying to have a 'school.' There are about eighty kids, but they have no building, no teacher, not even paper. They're just scratching their lessons in the dirt with sticks. Jackson: Oh, man. Seeing that after everything he'd just been through... I can imagine how that would hit you. Olivia: It hit him hard. He saw their incredible desire to learn, despite having nothing. It reminded him of his sister Christa's own struggles and her perseverance. So, in this moment of vulnerability, still reeling from his own failure, he makes this impulsive, heartfelt promise to Haji Ali. He says, "I'm going to build you a school. I promise." Jackson: And he has no money, no plan, no experience. Just a promise. That's both completely naive and incredibly beautiful. Olivia: Exactly. He returns to the US and is basically homeless, living out of his car. He starts a fundraising campaign by typing letters to celebrities on a rented typewriter at a copy shop. He sends out 580 letters. Jackson: And how many responses did he get? Olivia: One. One check. Jackson: You're kidding. After all that? Olivia: But it was the right one. He got a check for $12,000 from a wealthy physicist and fellow mountaineer named Jean Hoerni. The note attached just said, "Don't screw up." Jackson: That's the stuff of movies. It’s this perfect, inspiring story of a promise kept against all odds. It’s easy to see why it captivated so many people. Olivia: It is. The story is about the power of a simple, human connection to spark a global movement. It suggests that the answer to huge, complex problems like extremism isn't necessarily a grand strategy, but one-on-one relationships, one cup of tea, one school at a time.

Jackson: And that raw, incredible story is why the book sold millions. It’s perfect. Maybe... a little too perfect. Olivia, this is where the story takes a sharp turn, isn't it? Because people started questioning if it actually happened that way. Olivia: This is where it gets very complicated. In 2011, eight years after the book's publication and at the height of its fame, a 60 Minutes report and an e-book by journalist Jon Krakauer, titled Three Cups of Deceit, came out. Krakauer, a respected journalist and author of Into Thin Air, was once a donor to Mortenson's foundation, the Central Asia Institute, or CAI. Jackson: Jon Krakauer? That's a heavy hitter. What were his main allegations? Olivia: The most damaging one struck at the very heart of the book's origin story. Krakauer and 60 Minutes interviewed the porters who were with Mortenson on the K2 expedition. They claimed that Mortenson didn't get lost and stumble into Korphe right after his climb in 1993. They allege he walked out with everyone else and only visited Korphe a full year later, in 1994. Jackson: Wait. So the foundational story—this moment of being lost and broken, which leads to the promise—that might have been fabricated? Olivia: That's the allegation. It suggests the narrative was compressed and dramatized to create a more compelling story. The book presents it as a single, seamless event, but the timeline might have been very different. Jackson: That changes the emotional core of the story completely. It moves it from a spontaneous, heartfelt act to something that feels more calculated. What else? Olivia: Another key story in the book is Mortenson's kidnapping in Waziristan. The book portrays it as a terrifying, eight-day ordeal at the hands of the Taliban. The investigation, however, found that while he was detained, his captors were not Taliban, and they treated him more like an honored guest. His own translator from the trip said they were never in any real danger. Jackson: Okay, so we have a pattern of alleged exaggeration. What about the work itself? The schools? Olivia: That's the other major part of the controversy. There were serious questions about the financial management of his charity, CAI. Investigations suggested that a large portion of the millions of dollars donated by the public wasn't going directly to building schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Instead, it was being spent on charter flights for Mortenson, advertising, and promoting the book. Jackson: So donors, inspired by this incredible story, were giving money that was then used to... promote the story? That feels like a vicious cycle. Olivia: It raised huge ethical questions. An inquiry by the Montana attorney general found that Mortenson had mismanaged CAI funds and required him to repay over $1 million. While no criminal charges were filed, it was a significant blow to his credibility. The report found that some schools the charity claimed to have built were empty, unused, or built by other organizations. Jackson: This is so disillusioning. You have this story that inspired so many people, including US soldiers, to believe in a different kind of solution. And then to hear it might be built on a foundation of half-truths and questionable finances... it's tough. What was the fallout? Olivia: It was immense. Mortenson's reputation was shattered. The co-author, David Oliver Relin, who was a respected journalist, tragically died by suicide. His family said he suffered deeply from the controversy and the feeling that his work had been discredited. Jackson: That's absolutely heartbreaking. It shows the real human cost of this. It wasn't just a literary debate; it had devastating consequences. Olivia: It did. And it leaves us, as readers, in a very difficult position. The book's message is powerful and, many would argue, necessary. But the messenger and the story he told are deeply flawed.

Olivia: This book forces us to confront a really uncomfortable question in the humanitarian world: Does a noble end justify questionable means? The story, whether entirely factual or not, inspired immense generosity and got schools built in places no one else was reaching. Jackson: So we're left with this paradox. A flawed messenger with a powerful, necessary message. What's the big takeaway for us? Olivia: I think the takeaway is that we crave simple, heroic narratives. We want to believe that one good person can change the world. Three Cups of Tea became a phenomenon because it gave us that hero. It was a simple, elegant solution to a terrifyingly complex problem. Jackson: And reality is never that simple. Olivia: Never. The controversy reminds us that we should probably be more critical of the stories we're told, especially when they feel too good to be true. Real change is messy, complicated, and rarely fits into a perfect story arc. The book’s initial success and its subsequent fall from grace both reveal something important about us—our desire for hope, but also our need for truth. Jackson: It almost feels like the real hero of the story isn't Mortenson, but the idea itself—the idea that education, especially for girls, is the most sustainable path to peace. That idea is still powerful, even if the story used to sell it has holes. Olivia: I think that's exactly right. And perhaps the other heroes are the people we barely see—the village elders like Haji Ali, the local builders, the teachers like Hussein, and the students like Jahan, the young girl who boldly demands Mortenson fund her medical education. They are the ones doing the slow, hard, unglamorous work on the ground. Jackson: That’s a much more hopeful way to look at it. It decentralizes the hero. It's not about one American savior; it's about empowering communities. It really makes you think. When you donate to a cause, are you funding the story or the work? It’s a tough line to draw. We’d love to hear your thoughts on this. Olivia: It’s a conversation worth having. The book, for all its flaws, started that conversation on a global scale. Jackson: This is Aibrary, signing off.