Harrison Williams

Henry Alexander Smith represented New Jersey in the U.S. Senate from 1944 to 1959.H. Alexander Smith was a late bloomer in New Jersey politics. Born in New York, he spent twelve years practicing law in Colorado Springs (his nephew, Peter Dominick, was the Senator from Colorado before losing his seat to Gary Hart in 1974) and worked at the U.S. Food Administration in Washington during World War II. He moved to New Jersey at age 39 to become Executive Secretary of Princeton University, and was elected New Jersey's Republican National Committeeman 23 years later.

After U.S. Senator Warren Barbour died in office at the end of 1943, Smith decided to run for the United States Senate. He was 64-years-old when he defeated Congressman Elmer Wene, a onetime chicken farmer from Cumberland County, by 25,725 votes -- a 50%-49% margin. He was re-elected in 1946 (by nearly nineteen percentage points against Camden Mayor George Brunner) and again in 1952, by a 56%-44% margin over Archibald Alexander.

During his 1976 presidential campaign against Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter pledged to appoint federal prosecutors "strictly on the basis of merit, without any consideration of political aspect or influence." But after taking office in 1977, Carter sought the resignation of the United States Attorney for New Jersey, Jonathan Goldstein, and replaced him with Robert Del Tufo, who was serving as the Director of the state Division of Criminal Justice.

The 36-year-old Goldstein was part of a trio of career federal prosecutors -- he followed Frederick Lacey and Herbert Stern -- named by Richard Nixon who had waged an aggressive war on public corruption and organized crime. He had sought to complete the final year of his four-year term. Goldstein accused the Carter administration of forcing him from office at the request of Harrison Williams, the Democratic U.S. Senator from New Jersey, telling the New York Times that the White House and Williams "distorted, misled, concealed and attempted to deceive the public" about their role in seeking his ouster. "I will not be silent," Goldstein said at a news conference, declaring "purely political considerations relating to the patronage demands of Senator Williams and the failure of this Administration to fulfill its commitment to the merit selection" as the reason he was being effectively terminated.

By tradition, the appointment of a U.S. Attorney goes to a U.S. Senator from the political party of the President. Republican Senator Clifford Case had sought the nominations of Lacey, Stern and Goldstein.

Williams, according to published reports, had submitted a list of seven potential candidates to the White House: Del Tufo, former New Jersey Bar Association President Joseph Nolan, former Assistant U.S. Attorneys George Koelzer and Oliver Lofton, attorney Roger Lowenstein; former Deputy Attorney General Howard Rosen; and former Assistant Essex County Prosecutor (now New Jersey Supreme Court Chief Justice) James Zazzali.

In early 1980, Williams was accused of accepting stock in a titanium mine as payment for his pledge to help an FBI agent posing as an Arab sheik obtain government contracts. Days later, the New York Times ran a story alleging that Del Tufo had recommended against the prosecution of Williams, who had been responsible for his appointment. Del Tufo denied making recommendations to the Justice Department that would aide Williams. He claimed that Williams had actually backed Nolan for the job he eventually received.

When Del Tufo resigned six months later, he claimed he needed to re-enter a private law practice to pay the college education of his four children. But the New York Times said that their Justice Department sources claimed that he may have been pushed out over his disagreement with Washington over the prosecution of several key cases. Grand juries in New York, Philadelphia and Washington returned indictments, while a New Jersey grand jury had not. Abscam-related probes of former Casino Control Commission Vice Chairman Kenneth McDonald and State Senator Joseph Maressa had not advanced (Williams's case was being prosecuted in New York), nor had a politically charged investigation of Newark Mayor Kenneth Gibson that included allegations that the Carter administration had intervened in the probe. Gibson backed Carter's bid for the Democratic presidential nomination at a time when Williams led a last-ditch effort to deny Carter the nomination by running an uncommited slate of delegates in the June primary that pledged to support California Governor Jerry Brown or former Vice President Hubert Humphrey.

In Essex County, Del Tufo had failed to win a conviction against former Newark Housing and Redevelopment Authority Executive Director Robert Notte, the 1978 GOP nominee for Essex County Executive. And Del Tufo's office was criticized when charges against former Essex County Sheriff John Cryan were dropped due to errors by the prosecution. Cryan lost his 1979 re-election bid largely as a result of his indictment.

For those who mock the great State of New Jersey, poking fun of the so-called "Culture of Corruption," consider this spin:

* A Governor of New Jersey has never been convicted of a crime, although Harold Hoffman, a Republican who served from 1935 to 1938, made a posthumous admission that he systematically stole tax dollars for years.

* It's been 26 years since a New Jersey Congressman was indicted. Frank Thompson, Jr., a 13-term Democrat from Trenton, was convicted in the Abscam scandal. Democrat Henry Helstoski was acquitted on his 1975 corruption charge and later went on to serve as the Superintendent of Schools in North Bergen.

* Only two United States Senators from New Jersey have actually served prison time: Harrison Williams, a four-term Democrat who was convicted in Abscam and resigned in 1981; and Jonathan Dayton, a Senator from 1799 to 1805, who was accused of conspiring with Aaron Burr to commit treason in 1807. Dayton, a former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, was released and never brought to trial, and seven years later made a political comeback when he won a State Assembly seat.

Back in the 1950's, one of the genuine rising stars of New Jersey politics was Adrian Foley, who was 32-years-old when he won a hotly contested race for Essex County Surrogate in 1953. Foley was viewed as statewide material, and Essex Democrats even touted him as a U.S. Senate candidate in 1958 -- for the open seat of retiring Republican Senator H. Alexander Smith.

When Hudson County Democrats said they would instead back Harrison Williams, who had lost his seat in Congress two years earlier, Foley backed off and became Williams' campaign chairman. Democrats nearly picked him to challenge U.S. Senator Clifford Case in 1960; the nomination instead went to former U.S. Attorney Thorn Lord, the longtime Mercer County Democratci Chairman and the law partner of future Governor Richard Hughes.

Foley was expected to be the Democratic nominee against Case in 1966, but dropped out when he was elected President of the state Constitutional Convention. (His replacement was Warren Wilentz, the scion of a powerful Middlesex County Democratic family.)

Former Governor Robert Meyner became the Democratic candidate for Governor in 1969, and by 1972 Case was unbeatable and Foley's window of opportunity had passed. Foley, now 85, remains active at his Roseland law firm, Connell Foley, which has grown into one of the state's most prestigious firms.

But what if Democrats had picked the 37-year-old Foley to run for the open U.S. Senate seat in 1958 against Republican Robert Winthrop Kean, a 65-year-old ten-term Congressman and father of the future Governor? The sixth year of Dwight Eisenhower's presidency was a huge Democratic year -- they picked up fifteen seats in the United States Senate. Williams beat an overconfident Kean by a 51%-47% margin, so perhaps Foley would have won the seat. Foley would likely have won re-election in 1964 -- another big Democratic year, and like most Senators from New Jersey, he would probably have survived efforts to defeat him in the future. Foley could still be in the U.S. Senate; West Virginia's Robert Byrd, elected in 1958 and four years older than Foley, is still there. And Foley is just three years older than Frank Lautenberg, who might never have had a political career if Democrats had picked Foley and not Williams.

Michael Ferguson's House seat has been held by Republicans since 1956, when Assemblywoman Florence Dwyer unseated incumbent Harrison Williams. Williams won a 1953 special election after the five-term incumbent, Republican Clifford Case, resigned to become President of The Fund for the Republic. Dwyer spent sixteen years in Congress, retiring in 1972. She was replaced by Republican State Senator Matthew Rinaldo, who served until his retirement in 1992. Rinaldo's successor was Robert Franks, a State Assemblyman and Republican State Chairman, who served four terms before running for the United States Senate in 2000.

Case and Williams won open U.S. Senate seats after leaving Congress. Case won in 1954, narrowly defeating Democratic Congressman Charles Howell. Williams was elected in 1958, defeating GOP Congressman Robert Kean, the grandfather of U.S. Senate candidate Thomas Kean, Jr.

New Jersey gets a bad rap on the corruption thing, but in defense of our state: last month was only the second time in more than 25 years that a statewide officeholder has put up bail money. The last time was in 1980, when Democratic U.S. Senator Harrison Williams was charged in the Abscam sting operation. Foster Voorhees, a Republican who served as Governor from 1898 to 1902, was indicted in 1908 on perjury charges relating to his management of a failed New York City insurance firm. The charges were dropped two years later.

There is a vacancy in the office of United States Senator from New Jersey for the first time since April 12, 1982, when Nicholas Brady was appointed to fill the seat of Harrison Williams, who had resigned on March 11, 1982.

Frank Lautenberg becomes the senior Senator from New Jersey for the second time. He was the senior Senator from January 4, 1997 until January 4, 2001. The last New Jersey Senator to have two separate tenures as the senior Senator was W. Warren Barbour. Barbour was appointed to the Senate in 1931, became senior Senator in 1935, and lost his seat in 1936. He won a 1938 special election to fill a vacancy in the state's other Senate seat and became senior Senator again in 1943.

Who was the last appointed United States Senator from New Jersey? If you answered Nicholas Brady, you're wrong.

For those who mock the great State of New Jersey, poking fun of the so-called "Culture of Corruption," consider this spin:

* A Governor of New Jersey has never been convicted of a crime, although Harold Hoffman, a Republican who served from 1935 to 1938, made a posthumous admission that he systematically stole tax dollars for years.

* It's been 25 years since a New Jersey Congressman was indicted. Frank Thompson, Jr., a 13-term Democrat from Trenton, was convicted in the Abscam scandal. Democrat Henry Helstoski was acquitted on his 1975 corruption charge and later went on to serve as the Superintendent of Schools in North Bergen.

* Only two United States Senators from New Jersey have actually served prison time: Harrison Williams, a four-term Democrat who was convicted in Abscam and resigned in 1981; and Jonathan Dayton, a Senator from 1799 to 1805, who was accused of conspiring with Aaron Burr to commit treason in 1807. Dayton, a former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, was released and never brought to trial, and seven years later made a political comeback when he won a State Assembly seat.