Foreign policy of the Ronald Reagan administration crisis and stated that the Soviet Union "runs against the tide of history by denying human freedom and human dignity to its citizens." This was before Gorbachev rose to power in 1985. Reagan later wrote in his autobiography "An American Life" that he "did not see the profound changes that would occur in the Soviet Union after Gorbachev rose to power." To confront the Soviet Union's serious economic problems, Gorbachev implemented bold new policies for freedom and openness called glasnost and perestroika. Reagan relaxed his aggressive rhetoric toward the Soviet Union after Gorbachev became chairman of the Soviet Politburo in
Anatoly Chernyaev the Soviet Union. He became General Secretary Gorbachev's foreign-policy advisor in 1986 and continued to advise Gorbachev when the latter became President of the Soviet Union. In 2004, Chernyaev donated his diaries from the Gorbachev period to the National Security Archive at George Washington University, which has published portions of them in English translation; according to the editor, "One can confidently say that every bold foreign policy initiative advanced by Gorbachev in the years 1985-1991 bears Chernyaev's mark on it." Since then, the National Security Archive has made available Chernyaev's diaries from 1972 to 1978 with an English translation of