MODERN AGE WINTER 2017 enough, Henry Wallace and others on the left attacked the Marshall Plan as a capitalist invasion of government, which would undercut social justice and threaten world peace. For them, writes Michael Hogan, the program was "a map on which . . . laissezfaire . . . [was] carved in bold relief."47 As a weapon in the Cold War-indeed "the centerpiece of America's early postwar policy of containment"-the Marshall Plan was a useful instrument.48 The ERP contributed to the strategic goal of maintaining a balance of power between East and West and thereby containing the Soviet Empire long enough for it to collapse under the weight of its internal contradictions-and beneath the heavy burden placed on it by increased defense spending under President Ronald Reagan, a proponent of "hawkish containment."49 These internal contradictions included the material opposition between a Communist command economy and robust free markets that would actually contribute to the common good, and the spiritual incongruity between totalitarian repression and human beings' unquenchable thirst for freedom. The European Recovery Program was a multifaceted enterprise prudently undertaken and competently administered. At the right moment in a perilous time, it brought to bear on a mare's nest of challenges the benefits of realistic conservative reform. 30 moder nagejour nal .comhttp://www.modernagejournal.com