First Lady Is Playing a Major Role on the World Stage

Laura Bush works out of an office in the East Wing, where some shelves are reserved for children's books. Still, she is hardly lacking in opinions, even if she is careful to ensure that they rarely eclipse those of her husband.

A casually elegant woman with a penetrating gaze, Bush often wears a Cheshire-cat smile that admirers say both conceals and protects her independence. She proved to be a steadying hand for the nation after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, by going on national television with advice for parents on how to help their children cope with the disaster. Aides say she has strong views on women's and educational issues but makes them known selectively within the administration.

Peter Smith, assistant director general for UNESCO, met with her twice in planning for a literacy conference and was impressed. "She is a person of enormous passion on literacy," he said. "It is not that she jumps up or shouts about things. Her passion has an enduring, no-nonsense quality to it."

Some admirers have been quick to contrast her with her predecessor, but Laura Bush dismisses such comparisons.

"I don't bake cookies," she said during a 2004 White House interview with the Chicago Tribune in 2004. Protesting that the press is often eager to put the first lady in a box, she added: "The people who have lived here are more complicated than that."

During a visit to Africa last year, she surprised the president by telling reporters he should consider a woman to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. Later, when the president nominated little-known White House counsel Harriet E. Miers for the post, provoking a revolt among some in the right wing of the GOP that eventually forced Miers's withdrawal, Bush speculated that some of the opposition to Miers may have been motivated by sexism. She has publicly lamented that some politicians have made a campaign issue of same-sex marriage -- even as her husband reaffirmed his support of a constitutional amendment to ban such unions.

The first lady delivered a presidential radio address in November 2001 on the plight of women in Afghanistan under the repressive Taliban regime. And she also pressed to visit that country, a wish that was fulfilled last year.

"Those are the things that she says she has always had an interest in -- it's just now she's expanding that interest," said Susan Whitson, her press secretary.

Her work has taken center stage this week in New York. During the global literacy conference, whose participants included first ladies from 32 nations, she was clear in her conviction that literacy is a cornerstone of liberty and self-sufficiency. Two-thirds of the world's 771 million illiterate adults are women, Bush said.

"By investing in literacy and education, governments build their economies," she said in the meeting's opening remarks.

During a meeting at the United Nations Tuesday, Bush sat at the head of a semicircular table as half a dozen health experts and officials from relief organizations briefed her on the drug trade and sex trafficking and on the horrific health and human rights problems in Burma, which is also known as Myanmar.

In remarks before the meeting, Bush said she has taken an interest in Aung San Suu Kyi, the democracy activist and Nobel laureate who remains under house arrest in Burma.

"Her example of her life actually calls attention to the situation in her country," Bush said. "And because of the attention that she gets from people around the world, we also now look at Burma and we want to see what we can do -- is there anything we can do to make sure she, as well as all the other political prisoners, are released, and that her country can reconcile."