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Déclassé Profession. Unlike many civil-libertarians, Williams acquired his lofty ideals in courtrooms rather than classrooms. The son of a Hartford department-store floorwalker, he helped support his family as a filling-station attendant. A flawless student, he was awarded a scholarship to Holy Cross and graduated summa cum laude in 1941. Because he hurt his back in a plane crash, Williams was medically discharged by the wartime Army Air Corps after two years, went on to Georgetown Law School. By 1945 he was working for a big Washington firm. Although criminal law was then considered déclassé, Williams willingly switched to it in 1949 and opened his own firm, which now includes 14 lawyers.
Williams first made major news in 1953 by winning the first successful libel suit against Columnist Drew Pearson ($50,000 for former Assistant Attorney General Norman Littell). As his reputation grew, he constantly upbraided the Government for stooping to seamy means in order to conquer seamy defendants. He sprang Costello by showing that the U.S. prosecutor had secretly scanned the tax returns of 150 venire-men to get a "goldplated" jury in the gambler's tax trial. In the 1956 perjury trial of ex-OSS Lieutenant Aldo Icardi, who told a congressional subcommittee that he had not murdered his commander in Italy, Williams succeeded by arguing that the committee had exceeded its powers by questioning Icardi solely in order to create the prosecution case.
Friendly Enemy. Some skeptics regard Williams' civil-libertarianism as a mere tool for winning juries and influencing judges. His admirers, on the other hand, laud him as a "guardian at the gate" of constitutional rights. Whatever the truth, the result earns Williams more than $200,000 a year and involves him in such diverse roles as president of the Washington Redskins football team, adviser to the American Civil Liberties Union, and general counsel of the Teamsters Union (though he no longer acts as the personal attorney of Jimmy Hoffa). He has a lawyer wife, seven children and a handsome home in Maryland's suburban Tulip Hill.
At the Baker trial, it was a tribute to Williams' abilities that his 2½-hour summation virtually mesmerized judge and jury—and yet the trial "crucible," in which he so firmly believes, condemned his client. The winner in the Baker trial, U.S. Prosecutor William O. Bittman, is a Williams fan too. Says Bittman: "If Bobby Baker had come to see me with the same facts he put before Edward Bennett Williams, I'm sure I would have fought just as hard—maybe not as well."