After Richard Nixon was elected president in 1968, the relationship between Brookings and the White House deteriorated; at one point Nixon's aide Charles Colson proposed a firebombing of the [Brookings Institution]. G. Gordon Liddy and the White House Plumbers actually made a plan to firebomb the headquarters and steal classified files, but it was canceled because the Nixon administration refused to pay for a fire engine as a getaway vehicle.
- imagine getting so pissed off at the Brookings Institution that you would do breaking & entering and arson against it
- imagine being so petty and cheap that you would ultimately fail to go through with it because you don't want to pay for a getaway car
this is the most nixon-whitehouse story I've ever heard
