In conjuction with the Alliance for Progress, the Kennedy administration established a state terror network in Central America which was maintained untill the early 1990's when it was dropped in order to "relieve pressure for more radical change" and was replaced with more subtle and efficient means to limit the threat of democracy such as the NED and free trade pacts to "lock them into the economic reforms." The purpose of the US AID Public Safety mission was explained by General Robert Porter, Commander in Chief, United States Southern Command, who told Congress that: Moreover, in the National Security Council warned that: US credibility would be undermined if cant control it's own hemisphere which would embolden others to free themselves from the system. The State Department instructed the security forces on their role, stating that: This system of terror and misery lead to the Linowitz Commission on U.S.-Latin American Relations to issue "a trenchant appeal for change in U.S. policy", observing that: Latin America scholar John Coatsworth writes that:
