Lawn to Leave DEA, Take Job With Yankees : Narcotics: Agency chief pressured Mexican officials in Camarena case. He is to be a vice president with the New York team.

WASHINGTON —  John C. Lawn, who has headed the Drug Enforcement Administration for five tumultuous years, will resign next month to become an executive with the New York Yankees, the agency announced Tuesday.

The former FBI agent presided over record increases in the ranks of drug-fighting agents but insisted from the start that the war on drugs could not be won through law enforcement alone.

An outspoken official during his early days in office, Lawn mounted a relentless campaign to pressure the Mexican government to investigate the involvement of its high-level officials in the brutal murder of DEA agent Enrique (Kiki) Camarena.

But in recent months Lawn had been overshadowed by Office of National Drug Control Policy chief William J. Bennett and other high-ranking Bush Administration officials who took over the spotlight on drug-related issues after President Bush placed them at the top of his national agenda.

In announcing his resignation, Lawn, 54, said his tenure had been “most rewarding and most satisfying.” He said only that he planned to resettle in the New York area.

But associates said that Lawn, who began his career as a high school basketball coach, is to become vice president of operations for the Yankees, a new team management position.

They said Lawn had established a close relationship with Yankee owner George Steinbrenner during their work on a DEA program to curb drug use among athletes.

In a statement, Atty. Gen. Dick Thornburgh cited that pioneering effort by Lawn as an example of what he called “extraordinary leadership . . . during an extremely challenging time.”

Lawn took over the agency in 1985, when it was rocked by the Camarena slaying. The agent and his Mexican pilot, Alfredo Zavala Avelar, were kidnaped, tortured and murdered in what Lawn called “the most traumatic incident in the agency’s history.”

Angered at a lack of cooperation from Mexico, the DEA chief mounted a pressure campaign that persuaded the Mexican government to release evidence that incriminated government officials. Lawn’s role was dramatized last month in the television miniseries, “Drug Wars: The Camarena Story.”

A DEA spokesman said a major reason for Lawn’s departure after 27 years of government service was that he would soon turn 55, mandatory retirement age for federal law enforcement officers. While the top DEA post is exempt from that requirement, the official said that Lawn--who served for 15 years in the FBI--always prized his special-agent status and did not want to continue as DEA chief without it.

Staff writer Ronald J. Ostrow contributed to this story.