Edward Lewis "Bob" Bartlett (April 20, 1904 – December 11, 1968), was an American politician and a member of the Democratic Party.

He was opposed to U.S. involvement in Vietnam, along with his fellow Senator Ernest Gruening, and also worked to warn people about the dangers of radiation.

[2] In 1939, President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed him Secretary of the Alaska Territory, serving under Governors John Weir Troy and Ernest Gruening.

A reporter for the Fairbanks Daily News from 1924 until 1933,[3] he accepted the position of secretary to Delegate Anthony Dimond of Alaska, serving in that role for a year.

[3] On January 30, 1939, President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed him secretary of the Alaska Territory, serving under Governors John Weir Troy in 1939 and Ernest Gruening from 1939 to 1944.

He was succeeded by State Representative Ted Stevens, appointed by Governor Hickel, who had lost the Republican primary for Alaska's other Senate seat that year to former Anchorage Mayor Elmer Rasmuson.

On account of his service as a Delegate, Bartlett was nominated as the senior U.S. senator, a decision that upset Gruening, who challenged this; it led to a coinflip.

In the 1968 Senate race, Bartlett's long-time colleague Ernest Gruening was defeated in the Democratic primary by Mike Gravel, former speaker of the Alaska House of Representatives.

But in an official statement, Bartlett stated "On August 27th, Alaskans in the primary election chose Mike Gravel as Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate over Ernest Gruening.

[9] Following the 1964 Alaska earthquake, Bartlett was part of the inspection team, and he contributed to efforts to rebuild Anchorage, along with Governor Bill Egan, Representative Ralph Rivers and Senator Gruening.

[10] Bartlett & Gruening came into Alaska on Air Force One, thanks to Edward McDermott, Director of the Office of Emergency Planning.

[1] Bartlett re-introduced the Alaska Statehood Act in 1950, with the backing of President Harry Truman,[3] although, after passing the House of Representatives by a 40-vote margin, it was killed in committee in the Senate.

[9] With the pressure from the convention and Bartlett, of whom members of Congress were very fond,[9] congressmen and other federal politicians rapidly switched their opinions, most notably Sam Rayburn, the powerful Speaker of the House, Senate Majority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson, and President Dwight D. Eisenhower, all of whom had been courted by Bartlett, after previous opposition.

After talking to Stevens in 1958, Bartlett remarked in a letter to a friend "At a guess, I should say that many taxpayers' dollars are used for telephone calls to the Interior Department from Alaska and vice versa on matters more political than executive.

Southern Democrats feared that Alaska, a state with a high native population and that had passed one of the first laws against discrimination, would elect pro-civil rights Senators.

[7] Bartlett's part in the Alaska Statehood Act was large, with Sam Rayburn summing up his change in opinion with: "Two words.

After the surgery, Bartlett went into cardiac arrest multiple times, but he eventually started to slowly improve, before beginning to decline again.

[10][9] Bartlett died on the same day that Governor Walter Hickel was announced as President-elect Richard Nixon's nominee for U.S. Secretary of the Interior.

Bartlett was aware of that, and before the surgery, he left a notice to his physician reading, "Don't let your scalpel slip, because the law has changed, and the current Governor, Hickel, will appoint a Republican in my place.

"[9] That made Hickel appoint the Republican nominee for the 1962 U.S. Senate race, Alaskan statehood activist & former senior executive official Ted Stevens to the seat.

"[9] On August 14, 1930,[1] Bartlett married his long-time companion & childhood friend, Vide Gaustad, the daughter of local newspaperman & miner O.P.

Senator Mike Gravel, U.S. Representative Nick Begich, and Lieutenant Governor Red Boucher all spoke at the unveiling.

Elson praised Bartlett's "high vision, lofty idealism, prodigious energy and sacrificial devotion.