The statute's authors were United States Secretary of State Dean Acheson, British Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs Ernest Bevin, and the French Prime Minister Robert Schuman, who deliberated for eight days in intensive conferences in Washington, DC. It gave Germany conditional sovereignty and admitted it into the Marshall Plan organization as an equal partner. The Allies retained the right to keep occupational forces in the country and complete control over disarmament, demilitarization, related fields of scientific research, war reparations, the Ruhr, decartelization, displaced persons and refugees, protection, prestige and security of the occupying forces, foreign affairs, and foreign trade and exchange.[1]