law, Yakovlev published a booklet called Poor Santa Claus, or the Police Eye of Democracy allegedly exposing Canadian totalitarian practices under the pseudonym N. Agashin. It claimed, among other things, that capitalism created "its sanitary serve - a system of repression, intimidation and terror", that the Canadian government "brainwashed its citizens", that the United States "tyrannised its neighbour", and that Canada was a totalitarian police state. Perestroika When Gorbachev became General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1985, Yakovlev became a senior advisor, helping to shape Soviet foreign policy by advocating Soviet non-intervention in Eastern Europe, and accompanying Gorbachev on his five summit meetings with President of the United States Ronald Reagan. In the summer of 1985, Yakovlev became head of the propaganda department of the CPSU Central Committee. Domestically, he argued in favour of the reform programmes that became known as glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring) and played a key role in executing those policies. In 1987, the Russian neo-Nazi organization Pamyat sent a letter entitled "Stop Yakovlev!" to the plenum of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, labelling Yakovlev as a Jew and the main instigator of a course of action that would lead to the 'capitulation before the imperialists'. For decades, it was the official policy of the Soviet Union to deny the existence of the secret protocol to the Nazi–Soviet Pact. At the behest of Mikhail Gorbachev, Yakovlev headed a commission investigating the existence of such a protocol. In December 1989 Yakovlev concluded that the protocol had existed and revealed his findings to the Soviet Parliament. As a result, the first multi-party elected Congress of Soviets since 1918 "passed the declaration admitting the existence of the secret protocols, condemning and denouncing them". Downfall and later life He was promoted to the Politburo in 1987, but by 1990 he had become the focus of attacks by hardliner communists in the party opposed to liberalisation. At the 28th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in July 1990, a cynical Alexander Lebed caused uproar when he asked Yakovlev: "Alexander Nikolayevich... How many faces have you got?" An embarrassed Yakovlev consulted his colleagues and continued on with the proceedings, but resigned from the Politburo the day after the congress concluded. As the communists opposed to liberalisation gained strength, his position became more tenuous; fiercely attacked by his former