Anderson says that when he returned from abroad, "I was just astounded that in my absence they would do these articles saying I wanted to get rid of it (smoking) on city streets, parks, everywhere."

Hughes says, "He came back and realized he wasn't going to go anywhere with it politically." He says when Anderson was asked about the ban by a broadcast reporter, he denied making the proposal and said " 'the Deseret News always gets it wrong, and they lied about that.' He's absolutely dead wrong about that, and we've got the tape."

Anderson, however, said that was among attempts by the newspaper to drive a wedge between him and faithful LDS Church members (who do not smoke).

Anderson says the perception he is anti-Mormon wounds him. "Anyone who knows me knows that I grew up LDS, that I come from a long and proud tradition of LDS families."

Does he consider himself LDS now? "I don't consider myself anything, although my name's still on the (LDS) records." He noted that the late LDS apostle Neal A. Maxwell told him after he was elected that he had looked up those records. "He smiled at me and said, 'You're still a member — but I won't blow your cover.' I loved Elder Maxwell."

Anderson says another instance when the News and church fueled the perception he was anti-Mormon came on the controversy over whether to allow Nordstrom to move from downtown to The Gateway.

"I was staying very firm about keeping Nordstrom in the historic Main Street area of downtown. Church officials came to me and said, 'Stick to your guns on this,' " Anderson says. But he says the church-owned newspaper, meanwhile, ran several "mean and personally nasty" editorials and columns attacking that.

He said he raised that with church officials. "They said it won't happen again," he says, adding that it did anyway.

"After the other editorial came out, I was actually invited to meet with the (LDS) First Presidency. And President (Gordon B.) Hinckley apologized. He said he didn't know how that happened over there, and they wanted to make sure it never happened again. Well, it did happen again," he says.

(LDS Church spokesman Dale Bills says the church declines comment on that meeting and about its relationship with the Morning News.)

When the LDS Church bought the mall where Nordstrom was located, Anderson said the Deseret Morning News then took his old position that Nordstrom should stay. But Anderson said he was then convinced by new data that Nordstrom should be allowed to move. "And then the imputation was, well, I changed my position because now the church had bought the Crossroads Mall," saying he was being accused of being anti-Mormon.