John F. Kennedy Sources

Documents from [1961] to [1963]

Identity Statement

HAEU Reference Code
JMAS.K-01
Extent and Medium

n.1 file

Reference Archivists

Carr, Mary

Content and Structure

Abstract

In the area of European affairs and European unity, John F. Kennedy is often remembered for his advocation of a "Grand Design" between the US and Europe, this concept was best epitomised in the climax of his Atlantic Partnership speech in Philadelphia, 4 July 1962. Initially Kennedy was sceptical about further European integration but came around to the idea through the influence of George Ball, whom Kennedy had commissioned shortly after his election to head a task force on foreign economic policy. So Kennedy's stance on Europe became one of support for European integration and its advocates. George Ball, later appointed under Secretary of State was one of many Europeanists in the Kennedy administration. McGeorge Bundy the President's Special Assistant in the White House for National Security Affairs, was another man whom Kennedy sought advise from on activities in Europe. Kennedy himself had lent his support for the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan and was with regard to foreign policy, removed from his father, Joe Kennedy's isolationist stance.Kennedy asked Ball and Bundy to formulate along with Monnet, Robert Schaetzel and Max Kohnstamm the ideas behind his Grand Design into a report, known as the Stevenson Report, which outlined a plan for a "policy for partnership" between a United Europe and America within a strong Atlantic Community. Like Ball, McGeorge Bundy had a close friendship with Monnet. He had worked with the agency in Washington for implementing the Marshall Plan and during the 1950's he taught a course in modern foreign policy at Harvard, which dealt mainly with European foreign policy. Kennedy himself had discussed the concept of the Atlantic Community with Monnet in March 1961 and had been greatly impressed with Monnet. So Kennedy's administration had as two of its key officials strong admirers and supporters of the concept of a European Europe, "Europeanists played an influential role in the formation of Kennedy's agenda in European affairs"1.

Allied Materials

Location of Originals

The originals are held in various Archives and Presidential Libraries in the USA

Notes

Notes and Remarks

1. Winard, Pascaline
Eisenhower, Kennedy and the United States of Europe, London, The MacMillan Press Ltd., 1993, Page 160.

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