During the debate in Washington in the aftermath of the Tet Offensive about whatever to send more troops to South Vietnam or not, Rostow argued that firmness in Vietnam was needed to deter "aggression...in the Middle East, elsewhere in Asia and perhaps even in Europe" and recommended that U.S ground forces enter North Vietnam and Laos to sever the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Rostow urged Johnson that "it is time for a war leader speech instead of a peace-seeker speech". In the aftermath of the Tet Offensive, Rostow argued that now was the time to finish off the Vietnamese Communists and urged Johnson to send 206, 000 more American troops to South Vietnam to join the half-million already there and to bomb North Vietnam even harder. During the debates, the out-going Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, who had been repeatedly bested in debates by Rostow, snapped in fury: "What then? This goddamned bombing campaign, it's worth nothing, it's done nothing, they dropped more bombs than on all of Europe in all of World War II and it hasn't done a fucking thing!" At that point, McNamara, who had become disillusioned with the war he had once supported, broke down in tears, asking Johnson plaintively to stop listening to Rostow and saying the war could not be won. Rostow had supported Johnson's decision to appoint Clark Clifford as Defense Secretary as he was known to be a hawk, and was greatly dismayed when the new defense secretary turned out to be more of a dove than McNamara was.