On 30 May 1961, his father was assassinated in a plot to end the 31-year-long dictatorial regime. Trujillo quickly returned to the country and, with the help of Johnny Abbes García, the ruthless intelligence chief, brutally repressed any elements believed to be connected with his father's death, murdering many of the suspects himself. However, soon afterward, he and puppet president Joaquín Balaguer took some steps to open up the regime. Trujillo eased his father's harsh censorship of the press, and also granted some civil liberties. While these were rejected as insufficient by a people who had memories only of the Trujillo era and the decades of poverty and instability which had preceded it (for example: 1902–1905 bankruptcy, 1911–1912 Civil War, 1914 Civil War combined with political deadlock and threat of U.S. invasion, 1916–1924 U.S. occupation), even these meager reforms were opposed by the hardliners gathered around Ramfis' uncles.