Bush tour diary: Rare reflection

By Rob Watson
BBC Washington correspondent

The one thing I will always remember from this presidential tour is the visit to Auschwitz.

Long after I have forgotten the diplomatic ups and downs of this journey I will never forget the barbed wire at Auschwitz and the piles of shoes and eye-glasses, now on display at the Auschwitz museum, that the Nazis took from the Jews they exterminated.

Just a few kilometres away at Birkenau, we stood on the railway tracks where Jews from all over Europe were taken directly from the trains to the gas chambers nearby.

All in all, some one and a half million people were murdered there, mostly Jews.

On display there are photos taken by the SS at the time, documenting their own unbelievable cruelty to their fellow human beings.

A rare moment

As he visited the site, President Bush said it was "a sobering reminder of the power of evil and a sobering reminder that when we find anti-Semitism - whether it be in Europe or anywhere else - mankind must come together to fight such dark impulses".

For the White House press corps, as we call ourselves, it was a rare moment to be even remotely reflective.

Since then it has been back to the usual schedule of being bussed and flown to more places in a day than is probably healthy.

But then these presidential trips are hardly either leisurely or intimate affairs.

If you imagine we spend our time having a nice chat with George W Bush on Air Force One, think again.

Most of the time we never even see the president in the flesh, never mind talk to him, it's just not on that scale.

Simple pleasures

One of the president's aides told me he travels with over 600 staff, the aide adding proudly that was a big reduction from former President Clinton, who considered a staff of 1,000 as travelling light.

There is also something of an upstairs-downstairs element to these presidential trips.

I'm writing this diary surrounded by other furrow-browed hacks from a hotel the Soviets must have left behind on the outskirts of St Petersburg.

Meanwhile, in downtown, President Bush has been to a banquet, the ballet, and taken in some fireworks.

Still, I'm not jealous, part of the press pack here includes a bottle of Russian vodka.