WASHINGTON — Sen. Joseph Biden Jr. drove up to a Belgrade mansion where Yugoslavian leader Slobodan Milosevic was waiting. It was April 1993, about a year after Serbian forces and paramilitary gangs had unleashed a murderous campaign against Bosnia's Croats and Muslims.

Biden had been calling for sanctions and NATO airstrikes against the Serbs. At the time he was getting nowhere. Milosevic was paying attention, though. He invited Biden to chat.

As Biden recounts in his memoir "Promises to Keep," the Serbian leader argued that the Serbs were victims. Biden responded with accusations of Serbian atrocities. Milosevic denied them.

Finally, Biden recalled, Milosevic asked, "What do you think of me?"

"I think you're a damn war criminal, and you should be tried as one."

Biden is known for being blunt. He's also highly regarded in the Senate for his knowledge of the world. As for Milosevic, the airstrikes Biden pushed for helped lead to his surrender; Milosevic was tried for war crimes and died in prison.

Biden, 65, is running for president largely on the strength of his foreign affairs expertise. People who know him, however, say that the character he's shown since he experienced tragedy at age 29 is an equally important part of who he is.

In 1972, Biden's wife and baby daughter were killed in a car accident. His two sons were seriously injured. The accident happened a week before Christmas and six weeks after Biden had been elected to the U.S. Senate.

One of his sons, Beau Biden, now 38, recalls that his father said at the time: "Delaware can get another senator, but my boys can't get another dad."

Biden wrote in his memoir that he told the then-Senate majority leader, Mike Mansfield, that he wouldn't become a senator, but Mansfield persuaded him to give it a six-month try.

He began a daily commute by train rushing to get home for dinner with his family. Biden, who married his second wife in 1977, commutes to this day.

In 1987, Biden was dividing his time between campaigning for president and, as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, running the hearings that led to the defeat of Robert Bork's nomination to the Supreme Court.

Campaigning in Iowa that year, Biden frequently quoted British politician Neil Kinnock. Then, at the end of one debate, he quoted Kinnock without attribution. A staffer for Michael Dukakis' campaign sent a video to reporters, and news stories accused Biden of plagiarism. He dropped out of the race.

Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., said Biden as president would be "very good at bringing people together and sitting down and working through problems. He'd know how to get the business done."

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