Ernest Bevin in the context of "Founding fathers of the European Union"

The Potsdam Conference (German: Potsdamer Konferenz) was held at Potsdam in the Soviet occupation zone from 17 July to 2 August 1945, to allow the three leading Allies to plan the postwar peace, while avoiding the mistakes of the Paris Peace Conference of 1919. The participants were the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States. They were represented respectively by General Secretary Joseph Stalin, prime ministers Winston Churchill and Clement Attlee, and President Harry S. Truman. They gathered to decide how to administer Germany, which had agreed to an unconditional surrender nine weeks earlier. The goals of the conference also included establishing the postwar order, solving issues on the peace treaty, and countering the effects of the war.

The foreign ministers and aides played key roles: Vyacheslav Molotov, Anthony Eden and Ernest Bevin, and James F. Byrnes. From 17 July to 25 July, nine meetings were held, when the Conference was interrupted for two days, as the results of the British general election were announced. By 28 July, Attlee had defeated Churchill and replaced him as Britain's representative, with Britain's new Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Ernest Bevin, replacing Anthony Eden. Four days of further discussion followed. During the conference, there were meetings of the three heads of government with their foreign secretaries, as well as meetings of only the foreign secretaries. Committees that were appointed by the latter for precursory consideration of questions before the conference also met daily. During the Conference, Truman was secretly informed that the Trinity test of the first atomic bomb on 16 July had been successful. He hinted to Stalin that the U.S. was about to use a new kind of weapon against the Japanese. Though this was the first time the Soviets had been officially given information about the atomic bomb, Stalin was already aware of the bomb project, having learned about it through espionage long before.

Herbert Stanley Morrison, Baron Morrison of Lambeth (3 January 1888 – 6 March 1965) was a British politician who held a variety of senior positions in the Cabinet as a member of the Labour Party. During the inter-war period, he was Minister of Transport during the Second MacDonald ministry, then after losing his parliamentary seat in the 1931 general election, he became Leader of the London County Council in the 1930s. After returning to the Commons, he was defeated by Clement Attlee in the 1935 Labour Party leadership election but later served as Home Secretary in the wartime coalition.

Morrison organised Labour's victorious 1945 election campaign, and was appointed Leader of the House of Commons and acted as Attlee's deputy prime minister in the Attlee ministry of 1945–51. Attlee, Morrison, Ernest Bevin, Stafford Cripps, and initially Hugh Dalton formed the "Big Five" who dominated those governments. Morrison oversaw Labour's nationalisation programme, although he opposed Aneurin Bevan's proposals for a nationalised hospital service as part of the setting up of the National Health Service. Morrison developed his social views from his work in local politics and always emphasised the importance of public works to deal with unemployment. In the final year of Attlee's premiership, Morrison had an unhappy term as Foreign Secretary. He was hailed as "Lord Festival" for his successful leadership of the Festival of Britain, a critical and popular success in 1951 that attracted millions of visitors to fun-filled educational exhibits and events in London and across the country.

The Moscow Conference of Foreign Ministers, also known as the Interim Meeting of Foreign Ministers, was held in Moscow between the foreign ministers of the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union from December 16 to 26, 1945. They discussed the problems of occupation, establishing peace, and other Far Eastern issues.

James F. Byrnes represented the United States, Ernest Bevin the United Kingdom, and Vyacheslav Molotov the Soviet Union. They issued a communiqué after the conference on December 27, 1945.

The Churchill war ministry was the United Kingdom's unity coalition government for most of the Second World War from 10 May 1940 to 23 May 1945. It was led by Winston Churchill, who was appointed prime minister of the United Kingdom by King George VI following the resignation of Neville Chamberlain in the aftermath of the Norway Debate.

At the outset, Churchill formed a five-man war cabinet which included Chamberlain as Lord President of the Council, Clement Attlee as Lord Privy Seal and later as Deputy Prime Minister, Viscount Halifax as Foreign Secretary, and Arthur Greenwood as a minister without portfolio. Although the original war cabinet was limited to five members, in practice they were augmented by the service chiefs and ministers who attended the majority of meetings. The cabinet changed in size and membership as the war progressed but there were significant additions later in 1940 when it was increased to eight after Churchill, Attlee, and Greenwood were joined by Ernest Bevin as Minister of Labour and National Service; Anthony Eden as Foreign Secretary, replacing Halifax who was sent to Washington as Ambassador to the United States; Lord Beaverbrook as Minister of Aircraft Production; Sir Kingsley Wood as Chancellor of the Exchequer; and Sir John Anderson as Lord President of the Council, replacing Chamberlain who died in November (Anderson later became chancellor following Wood's death in September 1943).

The Lord Privy Seal (or, more formally, the Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal) is the fifth of the Great Officers of State in the United Kingdom, ranking beneath the Lord President of the Council and above the Lord Great Chamberlain. Originally, its holder was responsible for the monarch's personal (privy) seal (as opposed to the Great Seal of the Realm, which is in the care of the lord chancellor) until the use of such a seal became obsolete. Though one of the oldest offices in European governments, it has no particular function today because the use of a privy seal has been obsolete for centuries; it may be regarded as a traditional sinecure, but today, the holder of the office is invariably given a seat in the Cabinet of the United Kingdom, and is sometimes referred to as a minister without portfolio.

Since the premiership of Clement Attlee, the position of Lord Privy Seal has frequently been combined with that of leader of the House of Lords or leader of the House of Commons. The office of Lord Privy Seal, unlike those of leader of the Lords or Commons, is eligible for a ministerial salary under the Ministerial and Other Salaries Act 1975. The office does not confer membership of the House of Lords, leading to Ernest Bevin's remark on holding this office that he was "neither a Lord, nor a Privy, nor a Seal".