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Kenneth Lee Adelman (born June 9, 1946) is an American diplomat, political writer, policy analyst and William Shakespeare historian.

Adelman graduated from Grinnell College in Iowa, majoring in philosophy and religion. He received his Masters in Foreign Service studies and Doctorate in political theory from Georgetown University.

Adelman began working for the government in 1969 at the Commerce Department, and then served in the Office of Economic Opportunity. From 1975 to 1977 during the Gerald Ford administration, Adelman was an Assistant to United States Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and now is a member of the Defense Policy Board. He has also served as a national editor of Washingtonian magazine for more than 17 years.

He was the deputy U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations for two-and a half years, working with Jeane Kirkpatrick. He also served as the Director of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency for nearly five years, during the Reagan administration. He was an advisor to President Ronald Reagan during the superpower summits between Reagan and Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev.

He took part in the Zaire River Expedition in 1975, traveling down the Congo River on the 100th Anniversary of Stanley’s legendary exploration.

Adelman is a member of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board well-known for his involvement in conservative policy efforts dating back to the 1970s, when he was a member of the neoconservative Committee on the Present Danger. More recently, he strongly supported the war on Iraq and worked for the think tank Project for the New American Century, arguing for new policies to help the United States remain a global leader. Adelman, called "a lifelong neocon activist", worried in 2006 that the incompetence shown in handling the war in Iraq would damage the neoconservative movement: neoconservatism, he said, "is not going to sell" for at least a generation^[1].

Adelman is also an expert on Shakespeare and has taught extension school classes at Georgetown University and George Washington University on Shakespeare. He co-wrote with Norman R. Augustine a book on drawing leadership lessons from Shakespeare, called Shakespeare in Charge: The Bard's Guide to Leading and Succeeding on the Business Stage.^[2]. He is known for some tendentious invocations of Shakespeare in favor of his political positions, including an NPR analysis of a scene from Othello in support of the invasion of Iraq, and lauding President Bush as King Henry V.

Adelman wrote a pair of editorial columns regarding the Iraq War in the Washington Post in February 2002 and April 2003 entitled, respectively, "Cakewalk In Iraq"^[3] and "'Cakewalk' Revisited".^[4] In the first he argued that the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq would be a simple matter to accomplish: "I believe that demolishing Hussein's military power and liberating Iraq would be a cakewalk." In the later editorial, published just a few weeks after the invasion, he claimed his vindication and in particular praised key Bush administration players: "My confidence 14 months ago sprang from having worked for Don Rumsfeld three times -- knowing he would fashion a most creative and detailed war plan -- and from knowing Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz well for many years."

Also notable are Adelman's predictions regarding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Adelman said that weapons were likely to be near Tikrit and Baghdad, "because they're the most protected places with the best troops. I have no doubt we're going to find big stores of weapons of mass destruction."^[5]

In an article first appearing on the website of Vanity Fair in November 2006, Adelman wrote that he regrets urging military action in Iraq and feels that he overestimated the abilities of the Bush administration leadership. He was quoted of saying "I just presumed that what I considered to be the most competent national security team since Truman was indeed going to be competent." He also added, "They turned out to be among the most incompetent teams in the postwar era. Not only did each of them, individually, have enormous flaws, but together they were deadly, dysfunctional."^[6] He wrote that the conduct of the war "just breaks your heart," and it "didn’t have to be managed this bad; it’s awful."^[7] In an article in The New Yorker, Adelman said of Rumsfeld, a friend and associate of 36 years: “How could this happen to someone so good, so competent? This war made me doubt the past. Was I wrong all those years, or was he just better back then? The Donald Rumsfeld of today is not the Donald Rumsfeld I knew, but maybe I was wrong about the old Donald Rumsfeld. It’s a terrible way to end a career. It’s hard to remember, but he was once the future.”^[8]

• Interview with Kenneth Adelman (pdf). Ronald Reagan Oral History Project. Miller Center of Public Affairs (2003-09-30).
• Nomination of Kenneth L. Adelman To Be United States Deputy Representative to the United Nations (1981)

1. ^ Rose, David. "Now They Tell Us", Vanity Fair, November 3, 2006. Retrieved on 2007-10-24. 
2. ^ Augustine, Norman; Kenneth Adelman (2001-05-16). Shakespeare in Charge: The Bard's Guide to Leading and Succeeding on the Business Stage. ISBN 0-7868-8644-7. 
3. ^ Adelman, Kenneth. "Cakewalk in Iraq", The Washington Post, 2002-02-13. 
4. ^ Adelman, Kenneth. "'Cakewalk' Revisited", The Washington Post, 2003-04-10. 
5. ^ Allen, Mike; Dana Milbank. "Question of the Day Dogs Administration Officials", The Washington Post, 2003-03-23. 
6. ^ Borger, Julia. "Neocons turn on Bush for incompetence over Iraq war", The Guardian, 2006-11-04. 
7. ^ Knowlton, Brian. "Kissinger Says Victory in Iraq Is Not Possible", The New York Times, 2006-11-09. 
8. ^ Goldberg, Jeffrey. "Inner Office - End of the Affair", The New Yorker, November 10, 2006. Retrieved on 2006-12-05.