1945: On the 1st of January Archbishop Damaskinos was appointed Regent. (It had been agreed that the King should not return to Greece until his position had been clarified by a plebiscite). Plastiras replaced Papandreou as Prime Minister. After the Varkiza agreement the guerrilla war (or civil war) was officially brought to an end. Years later in a broadcast, Chris Woodhouse summarised what the S.O.E. mission to Greece had achieved. 1. It had provided the technical expertise, such as the handling of explosives, without which the major sabotage successes would have been impossible. 2. It had provided the tactical planning and supplied the communications which successfully harnessed the courage of the Greeks to the strategic requirements of the Allied commanders. 3. Most important of all, in the long run, it assured that no armed force in occupied Greece would gain a monopoly of power on the day of liberation. The final aim of the mission was to leave the Greeks with a free choice at the end of the war--a choice between a Monarchy, a Republic or even a Communist regime if they wanted it. But the recent dramatic events in the closing months of 1989 in Poland, the U.S.S.R., Hungary, the East German Democratic Republic, Czechoslovakia and finally Romania have proved that the last choice would have been an unwise one if the Greeks had also opted for Communism. 1946: Following a plebiscite King George II returned to Greece at the end of September and appointed Panayis Tsaldaris as his Prime Minister.