"In fact, most of the federal money was already in place before Mitt came on," said Sen. Bob Bennett, a Utah Republican who supports Romney and served as point man for the federal funding. "The Clinton administration was completely supportive in saying these are America's Games, we will do whatever we can to make sure they are successful. The one concern I had was whether we would get the same degree of support from the Bush administration, which we did."

Romney has since touted his economic rescue of the Games as a hallmark of leadership: "The tsunami of financial, banking, legal, government, morale, and sponsor problems following the revelation of the bid scandal swamped the organization. It was the most troubled turnaround I had ever seen," Romney wrote in his book.

But he failed to convince even some key members of the organizing committee that the budget was in peril.

"Yes, we were out of balance, but we had (three) years to organize that," said Garff, the chairman. "In my mind, there was no sense of panic."

Fixing balance

Even if the finances were fixable, there were real doubts about how to fix the reputation of the Games — and of Salt Lake City.

Romney moved quickly to remove the taint of the scandal, partly by blaming his predecessor, Welch, and by suggesting there had been only a few bad apples on the organizing committee.

Welch and his legal team held an opposing view. Facing bribery charges punishable by up to 75 years in prison, Welch said everyone involved in the process, including Leavitt, knew favors were being given to members of the international selection committee.

Romney joined Leavitt in insisting the organizing committee was the victim in the case. Prosecutors alleged that Welch and Johnson and a few cohorts had defrauded the committee of more than $1 million in gifts given to IOC delegates.

"We amassed significant, undeniable information that everybody involved in the process was knowledgeable about what was going on, all the way to the governor's office," insisted Max Wheeler, one of the defense attorneys. "The governor could have stopped (the prosecution) in the very beginning if he had just said, 'Look, this is the way the game was played. We knew about it and maybe we went overboard, but it's just like what goes on in every other bid city.' The whole case would have gone away because there would have been no victim. But the governor denied everything."

Leavitt, now U.S. secretary of health and human services, declined to discuss specifics of the case.