A Study On Kennedy Administration’s ’Grand Design’

On July 4,1962, the Declaration of Interdependence between the United States and a United Europe issued by the President Kennedy formally proposed the foreign policy of the Kennedy Administration towards Western Europe, namely the Grand Design. Through analysis of the challenges this policy was faced with in the early 1960s, this paper analyzes and finds that the reason why the Kennedy Administration introduced the Grand Design is to deal with the developing tendency that Western Europe wanted to be independent of the United States and to build a US-led Atlantic Community so as to prevent the formation of the Third Force excluding the United States. Then, this paper focuses on the historical investigation on the Grand Design implemented by the Kennedy Administration, and respectively explores the implementation processes and results of the measures, so finds that the implementation effect of the Grand Design is not what the Kennedy Administration wished, finds in front of the two measures failed, and finds the limited results of the Grand Design is the introduction of Trade Expansion Act and a package of tax cuts agreed at the Kennedy Round. On this basis, this paper attempts to investigate the causes of the implementation result of the Grand Design from three levels including international system, nation and decision maker, and through an analysis, finds that the important factors resulting in the failure of the Grand Design of the Kennedy Administration are the contradiction between the U.S. bipolar strategy and the diversified tendency, the contradiction between the U.S. hegemony and the foreign policy of the UK, France and German, and the difference between the subjective assumption and the objective reality of decision makers led by Kennedy. After a comprehensive analysis of the Grand Design, a conclusion is drawn in this paper that this policy reflects the interdependent and conflicting characteristics of the US-European relations during this period.