Background
Dewey Follett Bartlett was born on March 28, 1919, to David A. and Jessie Bartlett in Marietta, Ohio.
Businessman politician rancher
Dewey Follett Bartlett was born on March 28, 1919, to David A. and Jessie Bartlett in Marietta, Ohio.
He was educated in Marietta public schools and graduated from the Lawrenceville (N. J. ) School in 1938. Bartlett worked summers on family oil leases while pursuing a B. S. degree in geological engineering at Princeton University, where he was president of both his junior and senior classes, chairman of the honor committee and undergraduate council, and an all-league basketball selection. He graduated in 1942.
Bartlett served as a U. S. Marine Corps bomber pilot in the Pacific Theater during World War II. After leaving military service as a captain, Bartlett moved to Tulsa, and entered the family petroleum business with his brother, involved primarily in secondary oil recovery through water flooding methods. Enjoying considerable success, they established the Keener Oil and Gas Company as a leading independent Oklahoma oil producer.
In the 1950's, Bartlett founded the Dewey Supply Company, an oil field equipment firm, and served as its president from 1953 to 1956. Starting in 1958, he acquired extensive ranch lands in Wagoner, Tulsa, and Delaware Counties. In 1952, Bartlett served as a Tulsa precinct Republican chairman in the presidential campaign of Dwight D. Eisenhower. In 1962, he ran for the state senate representing Tulsa County and was elected with the state's first Republican governor, Henry Bellmon. Bartlett was reelected to the state senate in 1964.
He ran for governor in 1966, promising to bring industry to Oklahoma, to veto any tax increases, and to operate state government with existing revenues. Benefiting from an efficient Republican political organization and divisions among state Democrats, Bartlett won the Republican primary and runoff elections, then defeated Democrat Preston J. Moore in the general election. As governor, Bartlett traveled extensively throughout the country in an effort to attract business and industry to Oklahoma. At the end of his term in 1971, he claimed that more than thirty-five thousand new jobs had been created and that $692 million in new industrial investment had been generated. He utilized the expertise of business executives to streamline the operation of state agencies and to cut expenditures.
With corporate financial assistance, he created a private organization to provide loans and other assistance for vocational and technical training for minority groups, while also encouraging minority management and ownership of businesses. In 1967, in conjunction with the sixtieth anniversary of Oklahoma statehood, he launched a flamboyant public relations campaign designed to upgrade the state's image and that of the term "Okie, " complete with lapel pins, honorary state-resident certificates, and the phrases "Oklahoma, Key to Industrial Expansion" and "Oklahoma, Key to Intelligence and Enterprise. "
An advocate of law and order, Bartlett's reelection bid in 1970 was adversely affected by allegations surrounding the Office of Inter Agency Cooperation, a secret, quasi-official state agency Bartlett had created in June 1968, ostensibly to prevent civil disorder and monitor dissent; the existence of the agency only came to light through the investigative efforts of a Tulsa journalist in the summer of 1970. Bartlett was assailed by the American Civil Liberties Union and the state civil liberties chapter for creating an organization perceived as a threat to free speech and an invasion of privacy. Critics charged that the agency compiled dossiers and blacklisted individuals, all of which he denied. Bartlett further alienated many educators by his reluctance to support pay raises for public school teachers, his veto of a statewide kindergarten system, and his criticism of the president of the University of Oklahoma. He was defeated by Democrat David Hall by a margin of only 2, 181 votes, the closest race in the state's history.
After leaving office, Bartlett returned to his oil and ranching interests. In March 1972 he announced for the Republican nomination to the United States Senate. Easily winning the primary, he entered the general election as an underdog to Democratic congressman Ed Edmondson, but riding the coattails of President Richard Nixon's landslide reelection triumph, Bartlett defeated Edmondson by a thirty thousand-vote margin.
Bartlett traveled widely, visiting South Vietnam and Cambodia for a week early in 1975 with Congressman Pete McCloskey at President Gerald Ford's behest. In July he made a brief trip to Somalia, investigating the plight of drought-stricken refugees and also examining the facilities in the northern port city of Berbera, where he warned about the creation of a Soviet missile storage and refueling operation. On his return to the United States, he recommended a $15 million appropriation for a military base on Diego Garcia Island in the Indian Ocean to counter the Soviet presence in the region. He made a one-day visit to Angola in February 1976 and led the opposition to a Democratic-sponsored bill that cut aid to the pro-Western rebels in the Angolan civil war. After a tour of NATO defenses with Democratic senator Sam Nunn in 1976, he issued a joint report to the Senate Armed Services Committee urging the strengthening of conventional forces and ammunition stocks, the improvement of air defenses, and the positioning of ground forces closer to Warsaw Pact borders.
In January 1977, Bartlett was diagnosed with lung cancer and underwent surgery. He returned to the Senate in February and in June underwent a second cancer operation. In failing health, Bartlett declined to run for reelection in 1978. After his term ended, he returned to his home in Tulsa, where he died.
In the Senate, Bartlett was a staunchly ideological conservative, a partisan supporter of Republican policies, a vocal defender of oil interests, and, from his position on the Armed Services Committee, an outspoken critic of NATO conventional forces, which he deemed insufficient and ill-prepared to confront potential Soviet military encroachments in Europe.
Bartlett opposed the Panama Canal Treaty in 1977 and in 1978 proposed a resolution cutting off all diplomatic relations with Cuba. He also opposed taxpayer funding of legal aid lawyers involved in busing cases, voted against raising the minimum wage, and opposed abortion except to save the life of the mother.
On April 2, 1945, he married Ann Chilton Smith; they had three children.
