17. Watergate ended public interest in the Pentagon Papers
The true depth of the false information about the Vietnam War fed to the American people (and the civilian government in many cases) was only beginning to be discussed and disseminated when it was overtaken by the election of 1972, and then the revelations of Watergate. Richard Nixon, who had a credibility problem throughout his political career, was not responsible for any of the deception described in the Pentagon Papers. But he nonetheless became harmed politically, as the occupant of the White House at the time they were revealed, and by the bumbling responses of his staff.
The White House plumbers created themselves in order to find leakers of classified information. Their creation was due in part to Henry Kissinger’s belief that Daniel Ellsberg was one of the “most dangerous” men in the country. The plumbers, shortly after breaking into the office of Ellsberg’s psychiatrist, became involved with the Committee to Re-Elect the President, reduced to the excruciatingly appropriate acronym CREEP. It was they who were caught breaking into the offices of the Democratic National Committee at the Watergate Complex, initiating the events which brought down the Nixon presidency.