Bush Begins European Tour

President Bush began on Friday the delicate diplomatic challenge of marking the Allied victory in World War II alongside Russian President Vladimir Putin while cheering the march of democracy in former Soviet republics.

Goose-stepping Latvian soldiers wearing black boots and olive uniforms greeted Bush and his wife, Laura, when they landed in Riga.

Before Mr. Bush left Washington, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov sent a letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice protesting the president's decision to sandwich his visit to Moscow between stops in Latvia and Georgia, another ex-Soviet republic.

White House press secretary Scott McClellan told reporters aboard Air Force One that none of Mr. Bush's planned remarks had been adjusted in response to the protest. "I think the president's response is that he looks forward to ... going to both Latvia and Russia and Georgia and the Netherlands," McClellan said. "He also has stated that we have to remember the past as we look ahead."

Mr. Bush's visit to four countries will include a solemn remembrance of wartime sacrifice at an American cemetery in the Netherlands and a military parade in Moscow's Red Square celebrating European victory in World War II. He also will lay a wreath at a Latvian monument symbolizing independence from communism and give a speech to tens of thousands of people in the freshly democratic Georgia.

By making Latvia the first stop of his trip, Mr. Bush is reaching out to the Baltic states, reports CBS News Correspondent Mark Knoller. For those countries, the anniversary of VE-Day is a reminder that Nazi oppression was replaced by 50 years of Soviet domination.

Baltic leaders hope Mr. Bush's visit to Latvia will boost their campaign to make Moscow denounce the half-century of Soviet dominance in the three small countries, which gained independence in the 1991 Soviet collapse.

In a nod to the Baltics, Mr. Bush told a Russian television interview broadcast Friday: "I think that the main complaint would be that the form of government that the Baltics had to live with was not of their choosing."

On Sunday, Mr. Bush visits the Netherlands, where he is deeply unpopular because of his decision to go to war in Iraq — and later because of the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal and the indeterminate detention of terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Georgia's president will want to know on Tuesday if Mr. Bush made good on his promise to intervene with Putin on getting Russian troops and military bases out of Georgia.

With Putin, there is a long list of areas of both contention and cooperation that bedevil the Washington-Moscow relationship of late, including democratic backsliding in Russia, Moscow's arms sales to Syria and Venezuela and crackdowns on businesses, Iran, North Korea, the Middle East, and Russian fears that the United States seeks to supplant its regional influence.

The two leaders are meeting for just an hour Sunday night at Putin's dacha, followed by a social dinner with their wives, so aides downplayed expectations for progress on every front.

In an exclusive interview to be broadcast on 60 Minutes on Sunday, Putin tells Correspondent Mike Wallace that the U.S. should question its own democratic ways before looking for problems with Russia's. "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.

The Russian president also says the United States shouldn't try to export its democracy, as it is trying to do in Iraq. Excerpts from the interview, conducted earlier this week in Russia, will be featured on Friday's CBS Evening News.

And everywhere Mr. Bush goes, Iraq is likely to come up. Of the six countries whose leaders Mr. Bush is visiting, only Russia, a leading war opponent, refused to contribute troops to Iraq. The Dutch mission there ended in March, however.

But democracy — whether it's the WWII victory over the Nazis and fascists, the end of communism in Eastern Europe or modern-day recent democratic advances — is Bush's overriding priority.

In Latvia, for instance, Mr. Bush is to say that the victory 60 years ago over Nazi Germany translated into communist occupation for millions in Central and Eastern Europe. The president said he also will talk about the mechanics of establishing democratic governments, such as the need for rule of law and protection of minority rights.

Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga has expressed fears that Moscow is returning to repressive ways.

"I must say, that the rhetoric recently (in Russia) has rather sounded like a return to Stalinist times in terms of the interpretation of history, and we do find that a bit worrisome," she said in an interview with The Associated Press on Thursday.

Russia maintains that Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania willingly joined the Soviet Union instead of being annexed by Josef Stalin under the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of 1939 with Nazi Germany.

In Georgia, Mr. Bush will speak in Tbilisi's Freedom Square where citizens celebrated the Soviet Union's fall and, years later, the ouster of pro-Moscow leader Eduard Shevardnadze. There, the president aims to celebrate last year's nonviolent Rose Revolution that brought Mikhail Saakashvili to power and to encourage young democracies making the transition to more open governments.