Eastland took an interest in Biden because the young senator shared his position on busing, one of the most contentious racial policy fights of the early 1970s. It was during this time that busing had turned working-class, union-heavy white areas like South Boston—the kind of district that launched Biden’s political career—into “war zones.” At the time there was “intense public disapproval of busing,” according to The New York Times. A 1974 Gallup poll, for example, only 15 percent of whites favored the policy, and 75 percent were against.

Biden, according Annis, showed Eastland “considerable deference” towards the Mississippi senator not because he was the key to freshman’s political ambitions but also an ally in the busing fight. Biden admits as much years later in his own 2008 book, “Promises to Keep: On Life and Politics.” Eastland wasn’t just a powerful senator, Biden points out, but ran the committee “that handled all crime legislation, a committee on which I badly wanted to serve.” Until very recently, of course, Biden took great pride in being a tough-on-crime Democrat.