The Failed Design: Kennedy, de Gaulle, and the Struggle for Europe

Abstract

The John F. Kennedy administration's pursuit of new frontiers in the emerging nations made its relations with Western Europe all the more important.1 Accordingly, Kennedy and his advisers crafted an elaborate policy, labeled the Grand Design, to shape European development while redressing America's relative decline in power.2 The Kennedy team perceived weakness in the nation's international position. The administration fretted over the persistent balance of payments deficit, the sluggish growth rate, and nuclear strategy.3 Western Europe, with its payments surplus, skyrocketing growth, and nascent nuclear weapons systems, appeared to be the key to resolving these problems. To turn that key, Kennedy officials wielded the Grand Design, an integration of economic, political, and military policies toward Western Europe. The scheme included the Trade Expansion Act (TEA) to reduce tariffs and create an Atlantic-wide free trade area. Its promoters believed that expanded exports were essential to America's global strength. The New Frontiersmen determined to tap Europe's, particularly West Germany's, financial surplus for aid to underdeveloped nations and assistance in maintaining U.S. troops. They wanted to stabilize the Cold War in Europe so they could concentrate on the battle with communism in the Third World. This conflicted with German and French aspirations. Americans tried to blunt those ambitions through British admission to the Common Market. The Kennedy administration also valued European unification as the way to contain West Germany and build a broader market for American products. Consequently, it talked about equal partnership with a united Europe. Yet like its predecessors, this administration had difficulty practicing partnership on other than American terms. In strategic military matters, the Kennedy team was particularly reluctant to share control. Proud of its managerial expertise, the administration wanted to keep Western nuclear forces centralized and in its own hands. This meant blocking independent German nuclear ambitions while trying to stifle those of France and extinguish those of Britain. By January 1963, the Kennedy administration's energetic pursuit of these policies had embittered French President Charles de Gaulle, estranged German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, and undercut British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan. The French veto of Britain's admission to the Common Market signaled the Grand Design's defeat and the end of America's easy predominance in Western Europe.