Foreign ministers Acheson, Bevin and Schuman at the opening of the Paris talks on Western Germany. Dean Gooderham Acheson (April 11, 1893 - October 12, 1971) was an American statesman and lawyer. As the 51st U.S. Secretary of State, he set the foreign policy of the Harry S. Truman administration from 1949 to 1953. He was Truman's main foreign policy advisor from 1945 to 1947, especially regarding the Cold War. Ernest Bevin (9 March 1881 - 14 April 1951) was a British statesman, trade union leader, and Labour politician. He co-founded and served as General Secretary of the powerful Transport and General Workers' Union in the years 1922-1940, and served as Minister of Labour and National Service in the war-time coalition government. Jean-Baptiste Nicolas Robert Schuman (29 June 1886 - 4 September 1963) was a Luxembourg-born French statesman. Schuman was a Christian Democrat (Popular Republican Movement) political thinker and activist. Twice Prime Minister of France, a reformist Minister of Finance and a Foreign Minister, he was instrumental in building postwar European and trans-Atlantic institutions and was one of the founders of the European Union, the Council of Europe and NATO