The American scholar and author James Hadley Billington (born 1929) was a student of Russian history who became director of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and later the Librarian of Congress.

James Hadley Billington was born June 1, 1929, in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, the son of Nelson and Jane (Coolbaugh) Billington. He attended schools in the Philadelphia area and graduated from the Lower Merion High School, where he was the class valedictorian and had been elected school president in 1946. While in high school during World War II, he had become interested in Russian history and literature and began studying the Russian language. Billington later majored in European history at Princeton University, where he was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa. He earned his bachelor of arts degree and graduated first in his class in 1950.

Billington went to England as a Rhodes scholar at Balliol College for his graduate studies. He...