Bartels, John

John Ries Bartels, Jr. (1934–), served as the first administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) from October 1973 to May 1975. He had previously served as the Deputy Director of the Office of Drug Abuse Law Enforcement (ODALE), which was folded into the DEA upon that agency's creation by President Nixon's signing of the 1973 Reorganization Plan #2.

The son of federal judge John Ries Bartels, Sr., and Anne Wilson, Bartels was born in Brooklyn, New York, educated in prep schools like the prestigious Phillips Exeter Academy, and attended Harvard University for both his bachelor's degree and his law degree. As a young assistant U.S. Attorney, the mystique of Bartels's fast-rising star (at age 35 he headed the Justice Department's New Jersey organized crime task ...