By Michael Shear
Washington: Beau Biden, the former attorney-general of Delaware and eldest son of US Vice-President Joe Biden, has died after spending more than a week receiving an unspecified treatment at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, his father announced. The younger Biden was 46.
Beau Biden had announced last year he planned to run for governor of Delaware in 2016. He was diagnosed with brain cancer in August 2013 and underwent surgery, radiation and chemotherapy. After getting "a clean bill of health" in November of that year, his cancer recurred in the spring of 2015, the vice-president's office said.
Beau Biden and his father, US Vice-President Joe Biden, meet at Camp Victory on the outskirts of Baghdad in July 2009. Credit: AP
He sought aggressive treatment and had been hospitalised this month. His family was with him when he died.
"Beau embodied my father's saying that a parent knows success when his child turns out better than he did," Mr Biden said. "In the words of the Biden family: Beau Biden was, quite simply, the finest man any of us have ever known."
Beau Biden (foreground) and his brother Hunter hold the family Bible as their father Joe re-enacts his swearing-in as US senator for Delaware in January 1985 with then US vice-president George Bush snr.Credit: AP
In 2010, Biden 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.
US President Barack Obama paid warm tribute to Biden. "He studied the law, like his dad, even choosing the same law school. He chased a life of public service, like his dad, serving in Iraq and as Delaware's attorney-general," Mr Obama said in a statement.
"Like his dad, Beau was a good, big-hearted, devoutly Catholic and deeply faithful man, who made a difference in the lives of all he touched, and he lives on in their hearts."
Beau Biden with his father at the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver, Colorado.Credit: Reuters
Biden's death marks 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, 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.
Beau Biden, carries the family Bible after his father was sworn in as US vice-president for the second time in January 2013.Credit: Reuters
"What started as a thought - a very persistent thought - has now become a course of action that I wish to pursue," he wrote in an open letter to his constituents in April 2014.
A lawyer by training, Biden joined the Delaware National Guard in 2003, serving as a major in the Judge Advocate General Corps. His unit was deployed to Iraq in 2008, while his father was running for vice-president.
Beau Biden carries his son Hunter, three, on his shoulders after returning from service in Iraq.Credit: AP
In a short, emotional speech introducing his father at the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver, 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," 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 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 abuse case his agency was pursuing against a paediatrician.
"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."
Instead, he ran for re-election in 2010, serving a second term before deciding to seek higher office.
Biden is survived by his wife, Hallie, and two children.
New York Times, Reuters