The sudden doubling of crude oil prices by OPEC forced inflation to double-digit levels, averaging 11.3% in 1979 and 13.5% in 1980.Following a mid-1979 cabinet shake-up, Carter named Paul Volcker as Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board. Volcker pursued a tight monetary policy to bring down inflation, but this policy also had the effect of slowing economic growth even further. During the late 1960s and early 1970s, relations between the two superpowers had improved through a policy known as detente. In a reflection of the waning importance of the Cold War, some of Carter's contemporaries labeled him as the first post-Cold War president, but relations with the Soviet Union would continue to be an important factor in American foreign policy in the late 1970s and the 1980s. Many of the leading officials in the Carter administration, including Carter himself, were members of the Trilateral Commission, which de-emphasized the Cold War.