When he took office, Richard Nixon was worried, write Gibbs and Duffy, that if he didn't treat Johnson with respect, Johnson would turn into a liability. Johnson showed Nixon the taping system in the White House, which was activated by a switch, and Nixon had it taken out, but later secretly installed one that was activated by voice – a decision which would prove crucial to Nixon's presidency. When the Pentagon Papers were published in The New York Times, Nixon asked his chief of staff H.R. Haldeman to break into Brookings Institute in Washington, D.C. because he thought there was a file there that would damage Johnson. Nothing was done about it, but the Pentagon Papers led to the creation of Nixon's Special Investigations Unit, which went by the nickname of the Plumbers.
