MOSCOW, Russia -- Alexander Yakovlev, one of the architects of the perestroika reform program instituted in the waning years of the Soviet Union, died Tuesday at age 81, a longtime friend said.Yakovlev joined the Politburo, the Soviet ruling council, in 1984, a year before Mikhail Gorbachev became the country's leader. He became one of Gorbachev's key allies as he began a policy of glasnost, or "openness," and a restructuring of the rigid Soviet state.The liberalization those programs produced is credited with contributing to the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991."We promised that things would get better, but things were getting worse and worse," Yakovlev recounted in a 1998 interview for the CNN documentary "Cold War."Davlat Khudonazarov, a former member of the Supreme Soviet and a longtime friend, confirmed Yakovlev's death to CNN.Yakovlev joined Russia's ruling Communist Party in 1943, after service in the Red Army during World War II. He resigned his seat in the Politburo in July 1991, just weeks before the coup attempt that briefly ousted Gorbachev and sped the Soviet state's demise."I wrote a letter to Gorbachev warning him that trouble was brewing. He replied, 'Alexander, you overestimate their intelligence and courage.' In July, I resigned. I said, 'Something's cooking, I can sense it.' He ignored me and went on holiday," Yakovlev recounted in the 1998 CNN documentary.Yakovlev, born in the village of Korolyovo in the Volga River Yaroslavl region, fought in the Red Army in WWII and was badly wounded in 1943. He graduated from the history faculty of Yaroslavl University and became a Communist Party apparatchik.He rose through the ranks and served as the Soviet ambassador in Canada in 1973-1983, where he first met Gorbachev in 1982 when the latter was a visiting member of the Communist Party's Politburo.After the fall of the Soviet Union, Yakovlev became head of the commission for rehabilitation of victims of Soviet political repression. In that role, he remained a key figure in publicizing Soviet-era abuses.In 2000, he attracted world attention by contending that Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg had been shot dead in the Soviet secret police headquarters building in 1947.Yakovlev later established the International Democracy Foundation, which he chaired until his death.Yakovlev is survived by his wife, son and daughter. Information on funeral plans was not immediately made public.Copyright 2005 CNN. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Associated Press contributed to this report.