Williams served in the United States Army in World War II and personally took 41 German soldiers prisoner, earning him the Silver Star.

He later testified in federal court that leaders of organized crime paid him $1,500 a month in order to funnel $87.75 million in loans from the pension fund to construction projects run by the mob.

During this period, Williams formed a close working relationship with Teamsters president Jimmy Hoffa.

Williams quickly rose to power in the post-Hoffa Teamsters by associating himself with new president Frank Fitzsimmons.

In 1976, Fitzsimmons appointed Williams to be director of the Central Conference of Teamsters, a regional council which controlled union locals in 14 Midwestern states.

On June 6, 1981, two weeks after his indictment, Teamsters members elected Williams president, to serve out Fitzsimmons's unexpired five-year term.

During his short tenure as president, Williams was forced to reopen the national trucking agreement in September 1981 and accept a two-year wage freeze (which the union ratified in March 1982).

After a two-month trial during which extensive wiretapping evidence was heard, Williams and four others were convicted on December 15, 1982, for conspiring to bribe Nevada Senator Howard Cannon to defeat a trucking industry deregulation bill, the Motor Carrier Regulatory Reform and Modernization Act of 1980.

In August 1988, Williams was granted parole due to ill health and for having turned state's evidence in federal prosecutions in a number of other criminal cases.