Kenneth Lee Adelman is an American diplomat, political writer, policy analyst, literary historian and Shakespeare scholar. He began his federal government career around 1968–1969 as a legislative officer at the U.S. Department of Commerce and subsequently served in the Office of Economic Opportunity. During the Gerald Ford administration (1975–1977) he was Assistant to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. In the Ronald Reagan administration he served a nineteen-month tenure as Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations and was Director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency from 1983 to 1987. He later served as a member of the Defense Policy Board. Adelman graduated from Grinnell College and earned a master’s degree in foreign service from Georgetown University. He has been active as an opinion journalist and participant in neoconservative policy discussions and is known for having predicted the Iraq War would be a “cakewalk.” Since June 2016 he has served on the board of directors of RIWI Corp., a global data-collection company.