Laura Bush Ready to Try Her Wings as a U.S. Envoy

The first time Laura Bush traveled to Europe, she was just out of college and on one of those seven-day, 17-country trips by bus and train. She returns next week by Air Force jet for an official tour of Paris, Hungary and the Czech Republic with her daughter Jenna.

Laura Bush, who leaves Monday for 10 days on her first international mission without her husband, wants to highlight U.S.-led efforts to rebuild Afghanistan.

“We thought it’s a really good time for us, for me, to have the chance to travel to Europe and thank all of the allies,” she said Thursday, previewing the trip for reporters.

She will travel as President Bush’s official representative, having been briefed by State Department officials who will also accompany her, along with presidential counselor Karen Hughes.

Aides say the first lady, after dozens of meetings with world leaders and their spouses, has developed what she calls an easy, “almost instant simpatico” with them that eliminates any butterflies she might have about representing the United States overseas for the first time.

She seemed determined to mix fun with business, saying she is setting aside some time for “a little sightseeing, shopping, eating--all of our favorite things.”

In a formal address in Paris to the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development, Mrs. Bush will underscore progress toward ensuring the education of women and girls in Afghanistan.

By visiting an exhibit of Afghan art at Paris’ Guimet Museum, she hopes to highlight the magnitude of reconstruction needs in Afghanistan since its Taliban militia, which not only banned females from schools but also destroyed centuries-old cultural treasures such as the towering Bamian Buddhas, collapsed under the U.S.-led assault last year.

“I think the destruction of the huge Buddhas that had been there for so long is really just a symbol of how destructive the Taliban regime was, how destructive to people, but also to all the fruits of the labor of people for so many thousands of years,” she said.

While in the Czech capital of Prague, headquarters of Radio Free Europe, the first lady is to deliver a broadcast to the Afghan people and add Afghanistan’s banner to the lineup of flags from countries that receive the U.S. government-funded radio news service.

The trip also is a chance to see old friends in their new homes.

At each stop, Mrs. Bush and Jenna, 20, will stay at ambassadorial residences with Texas friends and campaign contributors who won diplomatic postings from the president: Jeanne Phillips, U.S. ambassador to the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development; Nancy Brinker, ambassador to Hungary; and Craig Stapleton, ambassador to the Czech Republic, whose wife is the president’s cousin.

Brinker, one of the big-money “Pioneer” contributors to the president’s 2000 presidential campaign along with Stapleton, founded the Dallas-based Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. She recruited Laura Bush to help when she was first lady of Texas. At the National Institute of Oncology in Budapest, they will speak to patients about women’s health and to Hungarian officials about the role of philanthropy in public health.

Mrs. Bush sounded especially eager to meet at Prague Castle with Czech President Vaclav Havel.

“He was a playwright, he was an intellectual, he was not someone you would think of as becoming the president,” she said. She also will meet Hungarian President Ferenc Madl.