As Joe Biden takes office as the new President of the United States, we have found several instances where he appears in documents in the University Archives and the Booth Family Center for Special Collections.
The James H. McCartney Collection includes several slides of Biden taken by the late James McCartney, a Knight-Ridder correspondent and Georgetown instructor. McCartney, or in some cases fellow travelers, took the pictures in April 1979 during a trip by a Senate Foreign Relations Committee delegation to China, including Senators Frank Church, Jacob Javits, Paul Sarbanes, Edward Zorinsky, and Biden. “Jim’s stories about the 1979 China trip are also part of the McCartney Collection at Georgetown,” said Molly McCartney, Jim’s wife.
This group photo, taken by an unknown fellow traveler, features Joe and Jill Biden, Jim McCartney, and several senators’ wives and staff members during that trip. Biden putting “James” in quotes when he signed it as a bit of an in-joke, using the formal name McCartney used for his bylines rather than the familiar "Jim" that Biden knew him by.
Other holdings related to Biden include:
- A 1977 photo of Biden informally addressing the Georgetown Lecture Fund.
- An audio recording of the 2001 Weintal Prize Award ceremony, at which Biden was the guest speaker and discussed media reporting of the news.
- A 1986 letter from Biden to diplomat Paul C. Warnke that included a speech he made to the Democratic Policy Commission, “American Foreign Policy: the Dangers of Ideology.”
- A 1989 Res Ipsa Loquitur article by Biden advocating a model to resolve tensions between Congress and the president.
- A Hoya article about Biden’s speech to the Escape ‘95 retreat program in Gaston Hall in 1992.
- Materials related to the School of Foreign Services’ STIA-Loewy Lecture that Biden presented in 2000.
- Correspondence between Biden and diplomat Richard M. Helms.
- Images of Biden receiving the Bicentennial Medal from Charles L. Currie, S.J. in 1989.
Some of these materials are available online in DigitalGeorgetown. Others are only available in person in the Booth Family Center for Special Collections, which is currently open to researchers by appointment only.