National geographic: behind America's lens on the world.

• Author: Simonelli, Tony

National Geographic: Behind America's Lens on the World.

Howard S. Abramson. Crown,$17.95. Abramson, a Washington Post financial editor, discloses in this book a number of little secrets about the Grosvenor family business--the National Geographic Society (NGS)--such as old Dr. Gilbert H. Grosvenor's penchant for fascism, complete with anti-Semitism; the NGS's genteel Southern racism; the Society's subtle sexism; and some big lies such as the lengths to which NGS went to name Navy Admiral Robert E. Peary as the North Pole's discoverer --all for its own publicity-seeking self-promotion.

The world's largest nonprofitscientific and educational organization, Abramson discovers, is a monolithic mail-order publishing house interested only in its own survival.

The Society is an institutioncreated by well-intentioned people that continues to do well-intentioned work. But its scientific achievements, Abramson says, lie mostly in the publication of its magazine. Hardly a new frontier. Moreover, the commitment to education is self-serving, feigned for the protection of its nonprofit (read tax-exempt) status. Is its mission "for the increase and diffusion of geographic knowledge' so unique? No. Does NGS devote itself to scientific exploration? Not exactly; less than 1 percent of revenue funded research and exploration in 1983. Is the Society "educational'? Not any more than Rand-McNally or McGraw-Hill. Then does the National Geographic Society deserve to be tax-exempt? Absolutely not.

Tax-exempt since its founding,NGS has the advantage of ambiguous regulation. In Behind America's Lens and IRS official explains: "It...