Beau Biden, Vice President Joe Biden’s Son, Dies at 46
By MICHAEL D. SHEAR

WASHINGTON — Joseph R. Biden III, the former attorney general of Delaware and the eldest son of Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., died on Saturday in Washington. He was 46.

The cause was brain cancer, his father said.

Mr. Biden had spent more than a week receiving treatment at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Washington, where he died.

In a statement Saturday night, the vice president said, “It is with broken hearts that Hallie, Hunter, Ashley, Jill and I announce the passing of our husband, brother and son, Beau, after he battled brain cancer with the same integrity, courage and strength he demonstrated every day of his life.”

The statement went on to say, “In the words of the Biden family: Beau Biden was, quite simply, the finest man any of us have ever known.”

In 2010, the younger Mr. Biden, known as Beau, had suffered what officials described as a mild stroke. Three years later, he was admitted to the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston after what White House officials described at the time as “an episode of disorientation and weakness.”

Officials said in 2013 that the doctors in Texas had removed a small lesion from his brain.

Mr. Biden’s death is a second tragic loss for the vice president, whose first wife, Neilia, and 13-month-old daughter, Naomi, were killed in a car accident in 1972 when the station wagon they were driving in to go Christmas shopping was hit by a tractor-trailer. Beau Biden and his brother, Hunter, were also injured in the crash, but both survived.

A popular Democratic politician in his home state who was known to be very close to his father, Mr. Biden served two terms as Delaware’s top law enforcement official before announcing last year that he would not run for a third term so he could make a bid for governor in 2016.

“What started as a thought — a very persistent thought — has now become a course of action that I wish to pursue,” Mr. Biden wrote in an open letter to his constituents in April 2014.

As recently as late February, some Delaware politicians close to Mr. Biden told news organizations that they still believed Mr. Biden planned to run for governor.

But Mr. Biden’s health had apparently declined in recent weeks, and he was taken to Walter Reed this month.

Born on Feb. 3, 1969, in Wilmington, Del., Joseph Robinette Biden III was an energetic politician whose broad smile mirrored that of his father. He appeared to be a natural to follow his father’s path toward national political success.

A lawyer by training, Mr. Biden joined the Delaware National Guard in 2003, serving as a major in the Judge Advocate General’s Corps. His unit was deployed to Iraq in 2008, while his father was running for vice president. He was also a Bronze Star recipient.

In a short, emotional speech introducing his father at the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver, Mr. Biden recalled the tragedy that had touched his family, describing the moments after the crash.

“One of my earliest memories was being in that hospital, Dad always at our side. We, not the Senate, were all he cared about,” Mr. Biden said. “He decided not to take the oath of office. He said, ‘Delaware can get another senator, but my boys can’t get another father.’ However, great men like Ted Kennedy, Mike Mansfield, Hubert Humphrey — men who had been tested themselves — convinced him to serve. So he was sworn in, in the hospital, at my bedside.”

Many in Delaware expected Mr. Biden to run for his father’s Senate seat after the 2008 election, but the younger Biden, who was elected attorney general in 2006, declined, saying he was still needed in his state as he pressed ahead on a major child molestation case his agency was pursuing against a pediatrician.

“I have a duty to fulfill as attorney general, and the immediate need to focus on a case of great consequence. And that is what I must do.”

He ran for re-election in 2010, serving a second term before deciding to seek higher office.

Mr. Biden, who lived in Greenville, Del., is survived by his wife, Hallie, and their two children, Natalie, 11, and Hunter, 9; his parents, the vice president and Dr. Jill Biden; his brother, Hunter; and his sister, Ashley Biden.

President Obama and Michelle Obama paid their respects to the Bidens on Sunday, visiting with them for about a half-hour at the vice president’s residence at the United States Naval Observatory in Washington.

Earlier, the president said in a statement that he was grieving for the vice president and his family. “For all that Beau Biden achieved in his life, nothing made him prouder, nothing made him happier, nothing claimed a fuller focus of his love and devotion than his family,” Mr. Obama said. “Just like his dad.”

He called the vice president “one of the strongest men” he had ever known and quoted the poet William Butler Yeats. “I have believed the best of every man,” Yeats wrote, “and find that to believe it is enough to make a bad man show him at his best or even a good man swing his lantern higher.”

“Beau Biden believed the best of us all,” Mr. Obama said. “For him, and for his family, we swing our lanterns higher.”

美副總統長子 46歲腦癌病逝

美國副總統拜登的長子波．拜登因腦癌病逝，年僅四十六歲。

拜登發表聲明說：「拜登家族為此心碎。我們知道，波的精神將與我們同在，尤其是透過他的妻子哈莉，以及傑出的孩子娜妲莉及韓特。」

波．拜登（Beau Biden）曾任德拉瓦州檢察總長，2008年拜登出任美國副總統後，波一度考慮競選其父留下的聯邦參議員空缺，德拉瓦州政壇還有不少人看好他在2016年出馬競選州長。

不過，波近年來健康不佳。他2010年就曾輕微中風，2013年八月被診斷出罹患腦癌，接受手術與化療後宣告康復，但在今年春季復發，五月中病情惡化住院，隨後宣告不治。

美國總統歐巴馬卅日晚間發表聲明，表達哀悼之意。波．拜登身後留有妻子與一兒一女。

拜登過去就曾經歷家庭悲劇。1972年他當選參議員後，當時的妻子娜莉亞和三個小孩發生車禍，娜莉亞和女兒不幸喪生，兩個兒子波和杭特重傷。五年後，拜登才再娶現在的夫人吉兒。

原文參照：
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/31/us/politics/joseph-r-biden-iii-vice-presidents-son-beau-dies-at-46.html

2015-06-01．聯合報．A13．國際．編譯組