 In contrast to this passive approach, the Third National Front advocated a strategy of civil disobedience and protests in the hope of either forcing the regime to come to terms with the opposition or face collapse.By 1964, however, Mohammad Reza Shah had consolidated his control of both his regime and the country, and he quickly moved to further guarantee his position by increasing the powers of SAVAK (the state's intelligence agency), which was infamous for the torture and killings it inflicted on the opposition and even on ordinary Iranians who merely uttered any wrong words against the regime.In this new atmosphere of police terror, the National Front virtually ceased to exist (though exile branches continued to operate in the United States and Europe).