completely under the 1948 Law of Permanent Defense of Democracy (), which banned communist and like-minded parties. He also broke relations with the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact countries. Many key communist figures decided to flee the country, including poet Pablo Neruda, who had decried GGV on the Senate Floor for "selling out to the United States." The communists that remained were arrested, but were not subjected to torture or execution. A pro-communist miners' strike in Lota was brutally suppressed. Demonstrations against what the communists called la ley maldita ("the damned law") led to the declaration of martial law, but were successfully repressed. In 1948, González Videla also learned of a plot by some members of the Armed Forces to lead a coup against him and install Carlos Ibáñez as president. He immediately ordered an investigation and the arrest of the coup leaders, including the head of the operation, General Ramón Vergara. Ibáñez, however, was absolved of all responsibility. This plan became known as the Pig trotters' plot (), because the coup leaders met in a restaurant which specialized in this Chilean dish. After outlawing the Communists, he ruled with the support of the two right-wing parties, the conservatives and the liberals, which approved of his anti-communist stance. He constructed a new cabinet made up of conservatives, liberals, radicals, some socialists, and members of the small Democratic Party. The Communist Party remained illegal until 1958. Controversy still swirls around the reasons for his aboutface. According to González Videla and his sympathizers, the repression of the Communists was necessary to thwart their plots against his government, but no evidence has been found to substantiate that claim. According to the Communists and other critics of González Videla, he acted under pressure from the United States and out of a desire to forge closer economic and military bonds with the dominant superpower. Historians have established that the president wanted to appease the United States, the United States encouraged a crackdown on Chilean Communists, and the US government appreciated González Videla's actions and thereafter expanded the scope of its loans, investments, and technical missions to Chile. The US and Chile also agreed to a military assistance pact while González Videla was president. However, no conclusive evidence has come to light that the US directly pushed him to act. Although González Videla feared Communist intentions and respected the wishes of the US government, he also