Even Krakauer, who became a sharp critic, admitted on “60 Minutes” that Greg “has done a lot of good. He has helped thousands of schoolkids in Pakistan and Afghanistan. He has become perhaps the world‘s most effective spokesperson for girls’ education in developing countries. And he deserves credit for that.”

What‘s also important about the Mortenson phenomenon is that Greg’s approach is the correct one for any aid project in the third world. He insists on sitting down with locals, listening to their needs, and getting them to participate in building the project. This means the community has a vested interest in the outcome.

That is the way his staff rebuilt the girls‘ high school that I visited in Muzaffarabad, Kashmir; it had been destroyed in a 2005 earthquake in which more than 100 students perished. The surviving girls had studied in tents for two years, despite promises from Pakistan’s government and other charities to begin construction. But with local labor, Greg‘s staff completed the job in a couple of months.

The “Three Cups of Tea” model -- getting critical input from the grass roots -- is the model other successful U.S. and private aid programs have followed. Failure to get local buy-in has doomed far too many foreign aid projects.

Indeed, the need to win local buy-in is essential to the entire U.S. strategy in Afghanistan. Greg did not originate this approach, but his book has come to symbolize it. This is one reason why the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Adm. Mike Mullen, attended the opening of one of Greg’s schools. It‘s also why Greg’s book was made required reading for U.S. servicemen bound for Afghanistan.

So it would be tragic if Mortenson‘s errors -- of omission or commission -- tarnish the good he has done and the aid model he promoted. When I traveled with him, he hardly looked like a big spender; he dressed in a Pakistani shalwar khameez (loose pants and a long tunic), stayed in cheap guest houses, and drove in ordinary cars.

But he is famously disorganized, driving boards of directors to distraction, as his co-author described in “Three Cups of Tea.” I almost didn’t get to travel with him because he failed to return phone calls.

It is easy to imagine that the “Three Cups of Tea” phenomenon grew too big for a visionary who didn‘t want to let go of control of his project. Yet a charity that collected $20 million in 2010 must meet basic standards of transparency and law.

It is also easy to imagine that Greg, who delighted in traipsing to the wilds of Pakistan and Afghanistan, was unable to create the bureaucracy needed to match the explosion of funds pouring into CAI.

Whatever the real story, Greg owes it to those who believed in him to give an explanation. Otherwise, the 60 Minutes expose will sap the idealism his work has inspired among so many Americans -- including children.

I’m thinking of a close friend‘s 11-year-old daughter, who said that, when she grows up, she wants to be “like Greg Mortenson, only in Africa.” Her school is collecting money for P4P, and classes compete to see who can raise the most money. Her mom says she is “heartbroken” by the stories about misuse of the funds.

I’ve told her that the principles that Greg promoted, and the schools he built, still stand, no matter any mistakes he committed. And I mean that. But I still hope he will set the record straight.

By Trudy Rubin

Trudy Rubin is a columnist and editorial-board member for the Philadelphia Inquirer. -- Ed.

(The Philadelphia Inquirer)

(McClatchy-Tribune Information Services)