To which Romney repeated, "You don't want me as an enemy."

Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson, a Democrat who also served on the organizing committee and remains a Romney friend, said Bullock had long played a "very destructive" role in the Olympic movement.

"We were all running out of patience and were pretty proud of Mitt that he finally put Ken in his place," Anderson said.

Yet Garff, the organizing committee chairman whose association with Romney went back to childhood, believed Romney inappropriately tried to silence Bullock.

"Mitt saw him as an agitator," Garff said, "and I saw him as a watchdog who needed to be heard."

Romney showed little sympathy for another trustee who criticized his performance. When Lillian Taylor, a small-business consultant, questioned why the committee continued to retain a pricey law firm that had acknowledged losing documents related to the scandal, Romney, who at the time said he had no problem with her raising the issue, sat silently while the board's attorney aggressively dismissed her complaint.

"Shame on Mitt for that one," Taylor said.

Sharp elbows sting

The Olympics was Romney's first intensely public leadership role, and by his own account, it showcased the skills he believes made him an effective governor and will make him an effective president.

In Salt Lake City, some found him inspiring and others found him intolerant. Many tended to trace his strengths and weaknesses to his long business career. They said he focused single-mindedly on the task at hand, starting with reaching out to some of Salt Lake City's leading critics of the Games, including Stephen Pace.

"It was very clear he was blowing in my ear, but it was a smart gesture," said Pace, a health-care consultant who had protested the use of public funds for the Games.

But Romney also appeared insensitive at times.

JoAnn Seghini, the mayor of Midvale, Utah, said Romney once rebuked her for talking to someone while he was testifying at a legislative hearing.

"He almost fit the definition of a strict nun in a Catholic school," Seghini recalled.

Later, he clashed with Utah police after they alleged he twice used the f-word if berating Shaun Knopp, a volunteer who was directing snarled traffic at an Olympic venue. Police were angered that Romney denied shouting the expletive and were further miffed when Romney later offered a partial apology to a sheriff's captain but not to Knopp.