In October 1964, when the Undersecretary of State, George Ball, circulated a memo "How Valid Are the Assumptions Underlying Our Vietnam Policy?", Bundy emerged as Ball's leading critic and offered Johnson a detailed memo arguing there was no comparison between the French and American wars in Vietnam. In December 1964 after the Vietcong bombed the Brink's Hotel in Saigon, Bundy advised Johnson to begin a strategical bombing campaign against North Vietnam, giving in a memo 5 reasons not to bomb North Vietnam vs. 9 reasons to bomb North Vietnam. Bundy predicated that bombing North Vietnam would solve South Vietnam's morale problems, saying the South Vietnamese soldiers would fight better once they knew the United States was involved in the war. In a cable to Maxwell Taylor, the ambassador in Saigon, Johnson gave domestic reasons why he would not bomb North Vietnam at present, saying he was to introduce his Great Society reforms soon, complaining about conservative Republicans and Democrats that: "They hate this stuff, they don't want to help the poor and the Negroes, but they're afraid to be against it at a time like this when there's all this prosperity. But the war-oh, they'll like the war". However, Johnson went on that once his Great Society reforms were adopted by Congress, he would commit the United States to war, saying he had doubts that North Vietnam could be defeated by strategical bombing alone, and he would sent American troops to fight in South Vietnam sometime in 1965.