Bush Trip Brews Russian Tension

President Opens European Trip As Relationship Strains Over Soviet Record

(CBS/AP)  "In the United States, you first elect the electors and then they vote for the presidential candidates. In Russia, the president is elected through the direct vote of the whole population. That might be even more democratic," Putin said.

At the same time, Bush said he would tell Baltic leaders that democracy must include respect for minority rights, a nod to Moscow's unease about the treatment of Russian-speakers in the ex-Soviet republics.

Mr. Bush, in an interview on Russian television, acknowledged that the United States and Britain played a major role in reshaping Europe at the 1943 Yalta conference of Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill and Josef Stalin. "I think that the main complaint would be that the form of government that the Baltics had to live under was not of their choosing," Bush said. "But, no, there's no question three leaders made the decision."

CBS News Correspondent Bill Plante was with Mr. Bush in Latvia, and said the president's message seemed clear: These Baltic states are fledgling democracies at a time when Russia is wandering off the path of Democracy and the rule of law.

Dan Fried, assistant secretary of state for European affairs, said on Air Force One that there are competing narratives about how World War II was won and the aftermath. "We have our dark spots too, just like the Russians, but we admit it," Fried said. He said the Russians do not.

Russia refuses to apologize for absorbing the Baltics, insisting that the Baltic governments of the time had willingly invited Soviet troops into their countries and agreed to join the Soviet Union. Baltic leaders say that if Russia wants glory for defeating the Nazis, it also should take responsibility for the occupation.

Putin said Moscow already has condemned the secret Soviet-Nazi pact that led to the occupation. In an interview published Friday, he said the Soviet-era legislature, the Supreme Soviet, had issued a resolution in 1989 that criticized the 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact as "a personal decision by (Soviet leader Josef) Stalin that contradicted the interests of the Soviet people."

"I want to repeat: We already did it," Putin said. "What, we have to do this every day, every year?"

Despite any cloudy forecast for the Bush-Putin relationship, the leaders will likely choose to keep any conflicting opinions hushed. As Plante reports, privately the leaders might admit there is a problem, but the U.S. leaders still need Putin and Russia to deal with the conflict in the Middle East and with nuclear proliferation. And Putin needs Mr. Bush, likewise.

President Bush will lay a wreath Saturday at Latvia's towering Freedom Monument, which served as a symbol of resistance in the difficult struggle for independence.

Mr. Bush's trip to Latvia, the Netherlands, Russia and the former Soviet republic of Georgia was designed to meet a variety of diplomatic needs.