Vietnam, the Communists would control Vietnam. Pretty soon Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Malaya would go. JOHNSON, August 2, 1965: ...If this little nation goes down the drain and can't maintain her independence, ask yourself, what's going to happen to all the other little nations? NIXON, March 22, 1971: ...If the United States now were to throw in the towel and come home and the Communists took over South Vietnam, then all over Southeast Asia, all over the Pacific, in the Mideast, in Europe, in the world, the United States would suffer a blow. And peace -- because we are the great peacekeeping nation in the world today, because of our power -- would suffer a blow from which it might not recover. Their unanimous agreement over the importance of Americas participation in the war was not questioned at any cost. That negligence on Americas part would create a domino effect in south East Asia had become the underlying assumption that was never questioned. The lack of dialogue on a topic of such magnitude points to the fact that groupthink arises from a lack of conflict. It was this lack of conflict and diversity of opinion that lead to a faulty foreign policy decision and a subsequent escalation of commitment by President Lyndon B Johnson. In a sample study to prove the effectiveness of conflict in work groups, KGroups were formed to solve a problem. As in the typical experiment, there were experimental and control groups. The experimental group had a planted member who job it was to challenge the majority view; the control groups had no such member. In all cases, the experimental groups came up with better solutions to the problem than did the control groups. However, excess conflict has a diametrically opposite impact on organizational performance (See Appendix A). It hinders team development, promotes aggression, causes indifference and has negative consequences on team spirit. Consider the National Democratic Alliance, Indias ruling p...
