In 1990, with the collapse of the Warsaw Pact impending, the United States reversed its "hands-off" policy and began to seek military-to-military contacts with individual nations of the Eastern Bloc through EUCOM, the Unified Combatant Command that would logically have jurisdiction over such contacts. The DoD was encouraged to do so by Robie Palmer, ambassador to Hungary, supported by Caspar Weinberger. Palmer's new views were based on his observation of the "regime change" associated with the end of communism in Hungary (1989). Despite the fiasco of 1956, the Hungarians were still interested in the support of the United States. They had nothing to fear from Soviet tanks now.