or presents a "clear and present danger" to Democracy in the world. Remember just about everyone working for Uncle Sam believed in the "domino theory" at some level. So you get some high ranking Govt official to tell multiple teams that JFK plans to pull out of Southeast Asia and let the Commies have that part of the world. Then that same official asks the team "How does that make you feel?" or "Are you sit there and do nothing or are you willing to do something about it?" to gain the support of the men in the mission. I mean US soldiers and CIA operatives were willing to go into Cambodia and Laos to prevent the spread of Communism even though the US was officially only in a conflict with Communist Vietnam.

As far as your comment about "This isn't a TV show," McCarthy's Red Scare in the 1950s and how the entire US was paranoid about the spread of Communism. I would say the US got to a point where it was acting like what you would see on a TV show or at the very least a giant Salem Witch Trials/Spanish Inquisition.