 McNamara's advice in July 1965 to Johnson to commit more 180,000 troops to South Vietnam together with a stepped up aerial offensive to destroy North Vietnam's economy was called by Bundy "rash to the point of folly".Bundy stated for Johnson to agree to McNamara's request to send more troops "was a slippery slope toward total U.S. responsibility and corresponding fecklessness on the Vietnamese side".Bundy argued that as it was the responsibility of the South Vietnamese government to stop the VC and that if the Americans continued to do all the fighting, then the United States would lack the necessary leverage to pressure Saigon into making reforms, turning "...the conflict into a white man's war, with the United States in the shoes of the French".