Harrison A. Williams 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". Indicted and subsequently 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.