One of the investments of the family firm was with the Freeport-Texas Company for which he and some associates decided to launch a corporate raid with a proxy fight in 1928.
At age 27 he returned to New York to become vice president, treasurer and a director of the Freeport-Texas company.
In 1948 he assisted with the Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe and later became a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
The chairman of a House Government Operations subcommittee, Jack Brooks, denounced Williams for "disgraceful, ethically reprehensible snooping," for hiring a former FBI investigator to look into the private life of a General Services Administration official supervising a nickel plant in Cuba.
Claiming the Administration official was hostile, Williams said "we felt it necessary to find out whether there was some special reason for his attitude."