Romney was born to American parents living in the polygamist Mormon colonies in Mexico; events during the Mexican Revolution forced his family to flee back to the United States when he was a child.

[43] Operating in a whisky-centric region was difficult, and he developed a new "task force" approach of sending more missionaries to a single location at a time; this successfully drew local press attention and several hundred new recruits.

[42][43] Romney's frequent public proselytizing – from Edinburgh's Mound and in London from soap boxes at Speakers' Corner in Hyde Park and from a platform at Trafalgar Square – developed his gifts for debate and sales, which he would use the rest of his career.

[22][45] Romney researched aspects of the proposed Smoot-Hawley tariff legislation and sat in on committee meetings; the job was a turning point in his career and gave him lifelong confidence in dealing with Congress.

[46] When LaFount, an aspiring actress, began earning bit roles in Hollywood movies, Romney arranged to be transferred to Alcoa's Los Angeles office for training as a salesman.

"[60][61] Lenore's cultural refinement and hosting skills, along with her father's social and political connections, helped George in business, and the couple met the Hoovers, the Roosevelts, and other prominent Washington figures.

[68][70] As peacetime production began, Romney persuaded government officials to forgo complex contract-termination procedures, thus freeing auto plants to quickly produce cars for domestic consumption and avoid large layoffs.

When Mason became chairman of the manufacturing firm Nash-Kelvinator in 1948, he invited Romney along "to learn the business from the ground up" as his roving assistant,[73] and the new executive spent a year working in different parts of the company.

[74] At a Detroit refrigerator plant of the Kelvinator appliance division, Romney battled the Mechanics Educational Society of America union to institute a new industrial–labor relations program that forestalled the whole facility being shut down.

[30] As the Big Three automakers introduced ever-larger models, AMC undertook a "gas-guzzling dinosaur fighter" strategy,[92] and Romney became the company spokesperson in print advertisements, public appearances, and commercials on the Disneyland television program.

His focus on small cars as a challenge to AMC's domestic competitors, as well as the foreign-car invasion, was documented in the April 6, 1959, cover story of Time magazine, which concluded that "Romney has brought off singlehanded one of the most remarkable selling jobs in U.S.

[92][107] The 1958, final report of the Citizens Advisory Committee on School Needs was largely Romney's work and received considerable public attention; it made nearly 200 recommendations for economy and efficiency, better teacher pay, and new infrastructure funding.

[99] In January 1964, Quorum of the Twelve Apostles member Delbert L. Stapley wrote him that a proposed civil rights bill was "vicious legislation" and told him that "the Lord had placed the curse upon the Negro" and men should not seek its removal.

[144] At the convention, Romney fought for a strengthened civil rights plank in the party platform that would pledge action to eliminate discrimination at the state, local, and private levels, but it was defeated on a voice vote.

[157] The final toll was the largest of any American civil disturbance in fifty years:[161] forty-three dead, over a thousand injured, 2,500 stores looted, hundreds of homes burned, and some $50 million overall in property damage.

[170] Romney's spending was enabled by the post–World War II economic expansion that generated continued government surpluses[135][168] and by a consensus of both parties in Michigan to maintain extensive state bureaucracies and expand public sector services.

[199] On August 31, 1967, in a taped interview with locally influential (and nationally syndicated) talk show host Lou Gordon of WKBD-TV in Detroit,[27] Romney stated: "When I came back from Viet Nam [in November 1965], I'd just had the greatest brainwashing that anybody can get."

[27][135] He sought to engage militants in dialogue,[135] found himself exposed to the harsh realities and language of ghetto areas,[27] and had an unusual encounter with hippies and the Diggers in San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury.

[206] His subsequent release of his federal tax returns – twelve years' worth going back to his time as AMC head – was groundbreaking[207] and established a precedent that many future presidential candidates would have to contend with.

[208] He spent the following months campaigning tirelessly, focusing on the New Hampshire primary, the first of the season, and doing all the on-the-ground activities known to that state: greeting workers at factory gates before dawn, having neighborhood meetings in private homes, and stopping at bowling alleys.

[213] When party liberals and moderates and others expressed dismay at Nixon's choice of Spiro Agnew as his running mate, Romney's name was placed into nomination for vice president by Mayor of New York John Lindsay and pushed by several delegations.

[233] When Black Jack, Missouri, subsequently resisted a HUD-sponsored plan for desegregated lower- and middle-income housing, Romney appealed to U.S. Attorney General John Mitchell for Justice Department intervention.

[220] Based on his automotive industry experience, Romney thought that the cost of housing could be significantly reduced if in-factory modular construction techniques were used, despite the lack of national building standards.

[237] HUD officials believed that the introduction of this technique could help bring about desegregation; Romney said, "We've got to put an end to the idea of moving to suburban areas and living only among people of the same economic and social class".

[23][243] Desegregation efforts in employment and education had more success than in housing during the Nixon administration, but HUD's many missions and unwieldy structure, which sometimes worked at cross-purposes, made it institutionally vulnerable to political attack.

[244][245] Romney also failed to understand or circumvent Nixon's use of counsel Ehrlichman and White House Chief of Staff H. R. Haldeman as policy gatekeepers, resulting in de facto downgrading of the power of cabinet officers.

[212] Despite all the setbacks and frustrations, University at Buffalo political scientist Charles M. Lamb concludes that Romney pressed harder to achieve suburban integration than any prominent federal official in the ensuing 1970s through the 1990s.

[266] Lehman College sociology professor Christopher Bonastia assesses the Romney-era HUD as having come "surprisingly close to implementing unpopular antidiscrimination policies" but finally being unable to produce meaningful alterations in American residential segregation patterns, with no equivalent effort having happened since then or likely to in the foreseeable future.

[277] Within the LDS Church, Romney remained active and prominent, serving as patriarch of the Bloomfield Hills stake and holding the office of regional representative of the Twelve, covering Michigan and northern Ohio.

[289] When Kennedy's campaign sought to bring up the LDS Church's past policy on blacks, Romney interrupted Mitt's press conference and said loudly, "I think it is absolutely wrong to keep hammering on the religious issues.