WILLIAMS, Harrison Arlington, Jr., a Representative and a Senator from New Jersey; born in Plainfield,
Union County, N.J., December 10, 1919; attended the public schools; graduated
from Oberlin College in 1941; engaged in newspaper work in Washington, D.C.,
and studied at Georgetown University Foreign Service School until called to
active duty as a seaman in the United States Naval Reserve in 1941; became a
naval aviator and was discharged as a lieutenant (jg.) in 1945; employed in the
steel industry for a short time; graduated, Columbia University Law School
1948; admitted to the bar and commenced practice in New Hampshire in 1948;
returned to Plainfield, N.J., in 1949 and continued to practice law; was an
unsuccessful candidate for the State house of assembly in 1951 and for city
councilman in 1952; elected on November 3, 1953, as a Democrat to the
Eighty-third Congress to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Clifford
Case; reelected to the Eighty-fourth Congress and served from November 3, 1953,
to January 3, 1957; unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1956 to the
Eighty-fifth Congress; elected to the United States Senate in 1958; reelected
in 1964, 1970 and 1976 and served from January 3, 1959, until his resignation
on March 11, 1982; chairman, Special Committee on Aging (Ninetieth and
Ninety-first Congresses), Committee on Labor and Public Welfare (Ninety-second
through Ninety-fifth Congresses), Committee on Human Resources (Ninety-fifth
Congress), Committee on Labor and Human Resources (Ninety-sixth Congress); one
of the congressional targets in the government operation known as ABSCAM;
convicted of charges related to this effort, and sentenced on February 17,
1982, to three years in prison, of which he served twenty-one months; during
subsequent Senate proceedings on an expulsion motion, he resigned his seat on
March 11, 1982; was a resident of Bedminster, N.J. until his death on November
17, 2001.