Harrison A. Williams Jr.: ERISA Author Sent to Prison Over Abscam

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Harrison A. Williams Jr., known as Pete, was born in Plainfield, New Jersey in 1919 and graduated from Oberlin College in 1941. He left Georgetown's School of Foreign Service to fly as a naval aviator in World War II, was discharged as a lieutenant junior grade in 1945, worked in the steel industry, and graduated from Columbia Law School in 1948. He lost races for the state assembly in 1951 and city council in 1952, then won a 1953 special election to the U.S. House, lost the seat in 1956, and won the Senate in 1958. Reelected in 1964, 1970 and 1976, he became the first New Jersey Democrat elected to four consecutive Senate terms.

As chairman of the Special Committee on Aging and later the Labor and Human Resources Committee, Williams championed the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 and the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, OSHA and the Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act. The Abscam sting, in which FBI agents posed as Arab sheiks through a front called Abdul Enterprises, caught him on tape promising help with government contracts for a titanium mine venture in exchange for hidden shares. Convicted of bribery and conspiracy in 1981, he resigned on March 11, 1982 rather than face expulsion, and became the first senator in over 80 years sent to prison. He died in Denville, New Jersey on November 17, 2001, at 81.

• His Urban Mass Transportation Act of 1964 was the first federal law giving mass transit aid directly to states and cities.
• The Williams Act of 1968 required anyone acquiring 5 percent of a company's stock to disclose it and set timelines for tender offers.
• The Senate Ethics Committee called his conduct ethically repugnant and recommended expulsion.
• He was fined $50,000, sentenced to three years and served two as inmate 06089-050.
• The Metropark train station named for him in 1979 had his name removed, and President Clinton later denied his pardon request.