After the socialist reorientation of the economy during the presidency of Salvador Allende, economic sabotage by the Nixon presidency, and the subsequent chilean economic crisis which reached its zenith during 1973, the Armed Forces following the orders of the military junta and with the support of the United States government made a Coup d'état and demobilized the forces loyal to Allende like the Revolutionary Left Movement. They closed down the congress, imposed censorship, limited civil rights and arrested thousands of people from leftists to center democrats. Upon taking over power, the military junta under the command of General Pinochet set out to implement a series of neo-liberal economic policies based on the Chicago school of economics. In 1973, only a little bit over two years of regulatory policies established by Mr. Allende, the military junta decided to reform the economy, and the Chicago boys were permitted to implement some of the neoliberal economical policies outlined in "El ladrillo". In 1979 however, Chile decided to depart from the principle of free floating exchange rates, with disastrous results.