The diaries of presidents offer history in the raw — even the naked — and may have secrets to tell

WASHINGTON — Just before dawn one summer day in Washington, the president of the United States stripped naked on a rock by the river, plunged in and saw a dead man float to the surface. According to Hur’s report, Biden’s diaries contained highly classified reflections on foreign adversaries, homeland threats and notes from the President’s Daily Brief, including some determined to be “top secret” with markings signifying they came from human intelligence sources — among the most closely controlled secrets in the U.S. government. “He had no legal authority to do so,” Hur went on, and the president’s actions “risked serious damage to America’s national security.” But he said the evidence falls far short of proving that Mr. Biden retained and disclosed these classified materials willfully. “According to the indictment, he not only refused to return the documents for many months, but he also obstructed justice by enlisting others to destroy evidence and then to lie about it.” FILE - Nancy Reagan, front left, and supervisory archivist Mike Duggan, front right, place some of former President Ronald Reagan’s original diaries on display at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library May 21, 2007, in Simi Valley, Calif. Presidents from George Washington to Joe Biden have kept presidential diaries. in search of a dead body.” “I stripped and went in to the river; I had been not more than ten minutes swimming when the drag boat started, and they were not five minutes from the shore when the body floated immediately opposite the rock; less than one hundred yards from the shore.” Thus the diary of the sixth president notes the death of Mr. Shoemaker, a post office clerk seen swimming about in the water until he was gone.