A quick excerpt from Negative Peace, as president-elect Joshua Sheehan is given a tour of the White House by Isaac Raven:

          Isaac Raven was a fabulous docent, with lots of insider stories to share. They started at what was once FDR's indoor pool, in the West Terrace, between the White House and the West Wing. It no longer resembled a swimming pool. Joshua noticed that Raven unconsciously dipped his head whenever he passed through a doorway. Joshua guessed six-five, maybe six-six. Magnetic reading glasses hung around Raven's preternaturally long neck, with its pointed, prominently protruding Adam's apple.
          "FDR had this installed in 1933, smack dab in the middle of the Great Depression. It opened less than three months after he took office. The New York Post raised the money. Twelve grand. Can you imagine a newspaper raising money for a president today?" Raven began.
          "Times are a little different, I guess," Joshua answered. "Newspapers can barely pay their own bills these days."
          "Roosevelt used the pool as therapy for his polio," Raven said. "He went to great lengths to hide his condition from the public. It was easier back then. No reporters and cameras everywhere. The press release at the time boasted that swimming kept him 'in perfect physical condition,' even though he spent most of his time in a wheelchair. He ordered the Secret Service to confiscate and destroy any pictures taken of him in his chair, you know."
          "I didn't know the Secret Service could do that. Makes you long for the old days, doesn't it?" Joshua said.
          "Sometimes it does," Raven answered.
          "After Roosevelt died, Harry Truman would take a swim with his glasses on. I think he did it just to entertain his staff and the occasional guest. I understand they found it quite funny," Raven related.
          "I would think so, " Joshua said.
          Raven continued. "Eisenhower didn't use the pool much, if at all. He preferred golf and his putting green. We'll get to that a little later. President Kennedy is a different story. He swam a lot to ease his back pain, which tormented him ever since his college football days at Harvard and his World War II heroics. JFK took a lot of meds for his pain, too - codeine, Demerol, methadone. It's amazing that he could even function, but that's another story. Kennedy invited Jackie to swim with him sometimes, although I understand that he also invited some women not named Jackie on others." The two men smiled. "He had the walls painted in a panorama of a Virgin Islands harbor to that he felt like he was swimming in the Caribbean."
          Raven sensed that Joshua was enjoying the stories, so he continued. "At least they all wore bathing suits, as far as I know," Raven announced. Lyndon Johnson, on the other hand, preferred swimming naked." That was news to Joshua. "The story goes that during LBJ's first month as president, right after what happened in Dallas, he summoned the Reverend Billy Graham to the White House. Billy Graham never turned down a presidential invitation. He knew every president from Truman to Trump. It became his calling card. 'Pastor to the presidents.' Rubbing elbows with presidents was good for Billy Graham's brand and the Billy Graham Crusades, and hobnobbing with Billy Graham was good presidential politics."
          "Well," Raven continued, "Billy Graham arrives at the White House with his friend, Grady Wilson, another evangelist, in tow. After they finished praying and talking, Johnson suggested that they take a swim right here in this pool. It hadn't dawned on the preachers to pack bathing suits, and Johnson didn't offer them any, so they joined him for some good old-fashioned, Texas-style skinny-dipping." Raven paused, wondering whether to add the next detail. He decided to go ahead. "Johnson was said to be rather - how should I put this - 'gifted.' And proud of it. Named the thing 'Jumbo.' We have plenty of pictures of Truman swimming with his glasses on. LBJ thought it best not to invite any photographers," Raven added. "That scene has been lost to history."
          "Probably for the best," Joshua offered. He tried not to picture it.
          "Probably," Raven agreed.