On 22 November 1963, Bundy was at his office in Washington when he received a telephone call from the Defense Secretary Robert McNamara telling him that Kennedy had just been assassinated while visiting Dallas, Texas. Bundy broke down in tears as the news of the death of his friend. Bundy took a somewhat patronizing attitude to the new president, Lyndon Johnson, telling him before his first cabinet meeting as president to "avoid any suggestion of over-assertiveness". In the spring of 1964, Bundy told Johnson that the South Vietnamese government was unable to defeat the Viet Cong and American intervention would probably be necessary. As Bundy sought to ingratiate himself with Johnson, his once friendly relations with Robert Kennedy declined as the latter considered him a "turncoat". Johnson was annoyed by Bundy's habit, which started when Kennedy was president, of popping in and out of the Oval Office as it suited him, and asked him to stick to a strict schedule.