 Following Carter's loss in 1980 to Ronald Reagan, Albright moved on to the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., where she was given a grant for a research project.She chose to write on the dissident journalists involved in Poland's Solidarity movement, then in its infancy but gaining international attention.She traveled to Poland for her research, interviewing dissidents in Gdańsk, Warsaw and Kraków.