Historian Gordon Prange, in an earlier work, noted that a war between the U.S. and Japan was contrary to Roosevelt's desire to aid Britain in her fight against Germany, and Prime Minister Churchill's desire to avoid "another war". Prange, the foremost authority on the Pearl Harbor attack, characterizes the conspiracy theory as "an absurdity." British historian John Keegan writes that Stinnett's charges of conspiracy "defy logic", and fail to show how Roosevelt could have succeeded in bringing US Army Chief George Marshall and US Navy Chief Harold Stark into the conspiracy. Another British historian, Ronald Lewin, calls Stinnett's theory "moonshine." Military intelligence historian Roberta Wohlstetter wrote that Stinnett conflated FDR's desire for an incident which might serve as a catalyst for war "against Germany", with FDR's supposed foreknowledge of such an incident provoking war with Japan. Presidential historian Joseph E. Persico found that FDR drafted an appeal to peace to the Emperor of Japan the night before the Pearl Harbor attack, which historian Hervie Haughler said could not be the action of someone who wished for war with Japan.