Leery of the Soviets

The job: chief of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, one of the most sensitive and intellectually demanding in the Administration. The man chosen to fill it: Kenneth Adelman, for the past 17 months a relatively obscure deputy to U.N. Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick. The reaction to the appointment: utter surprise. Says an Administration official: "It's mind-boggling."

A pipe-smoking man with a passion for Shakespeare, Adelman is a relatively pragmatic Republican who shares President Reagan's abiding mistrust of the Soviet Union. Adelman is convinced, says a former associate, that the U.S. "must negotiate from strength." One Western diplomat calls his speeches at the U.N. "some of the most ferocious language heard around here since the cold war."

Adelman grew up in Chicago, the son of an attorney, and graduated from Grinnell College in Iowa. He went on to get a master's degree and Ph.D. from Georgetown University under the tutelage of then Professor Jeane Kirkpatrick. His Ph.D. thesis was based on a three-year stint in Zaire, where his wife was a public health specialist for the Agency for International Development. In 1976 and '77 Adelman worked as a special assistant to then Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, his political mentor. Adelman served on Reagan's transition team, then returned to his post as a strategic analyst at SRI International, a private think tank.

When a job opened up at the U.N. in the summer of 1981, Kirkpatrick hired her former student. But his relations with Kirkpatrick had become strained, U.N. insiders say, and he found himself with little to do except serve on the disarmament committee. Kirkpatrick was reportedly irritated by Adelman's brash writings, including an article in Harper's that compared the "royal incompetence" of Tanzania's President Julius Nyerere with Shakespeare's Richard II. Members of the U.S. mission talk about "the Ken problem," his tendency to promote simple solutions to complex issues. "He bubbles over with ideas," says a colleague, "and many of them are bad."

The New Right claimed Adelman's nomination as a victory. Senator Jesse Helms, who fought Eugene Rostow's moves toward flexibility, pronounced himself "very encouraged." But White House aides say that Adelman will take a moderate stance. Suggests one Administration insider: "Adelman can do three things Rostow couldn't. He will be able to get along with the Defense Department, the State Department and the White House." This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.