FDR’s Green Light Letter: Simple Decision, Complex Consequences

Six weeks after the United States entered World War II, Baseball Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis wrote to President Franklin D. Roosevelt asking if he thought Organized Baseball should continue during the war. FDR responded the next day with his famous Green Light Letter, basically saying yes. Although this simple decision has been amply covered by scholars, its complex consequences have not. During the course of the war, more than a dozen executive agencies were called on to deal with practical aspects of the Green Light letter decision including the Selective Service; the Office of Defense Transportation; the War Mobilization Commission; the Office of War Mobilization; and the departments of war, treasury, and agriculture.