edwhite34@bellsouth.net

The biggest problems that controllers had began with Jimmy Carter who disliked controllers in general and Atlanta Center controllers in particular. His good friend and FBO at the Americus, Ga airport hated controllers and his feelings were absorbed by Jimmy.

I had watched Carter for many years and had warned friends about him before he became Governor and so had the location and the insight to observe his actions.

Controller upgrades had already been approved and Jimmy worked hard to come up with a formula which would exclude Atlanta Center. He thought he had one and the upgrades were made. We immediately counted our traffic properly and easily qualified. The facility was upgraded and jimmy was furious.

All center awards disappeared and performance evaluations downgraded for many. Jimmy did all he could to cheapen the profession. He then set up the machinery to assure that controllers had as little honest recourse as possible when contract time came around.

Carter was out and the Reagan administration was in when negotiations were due. It was clear to many early on that Ronald Reagan was not with it, later we learned that it was the early stages of Alzheimers.

The continued denigration of controllers really fell to Edwin Meese. With the machinery in place, a little tweaking was all that was needed and with a few key people in place, controllers had no chance.

During my off-duty time, the President fired those of us who had not returned to work and it was announced that the strike was over as those not back at work were no longer controllers. This was reinforced by the Transportation Secretary, FAA Chief, an Attorney General and others in high places. I naively thought that since I had been improperly and illegally fired that I could legally withhold my services and win in court. Court rulings were obviously political and a judge simply ruled that the President had not fired us. The Supreme Court refused to hear controller appeals.

What tipped me over the edge were the many outright lies given to the media by the Feds. The difficulty of the job, working conditions were downplayed while salary was greatly inflated.

Among their callous remarks was one calling us terrorists. Among the Atlanta Center controllers were many veterans, including at least three Silver Star recipients from SEA. One of these, very proud of his service to our country, would jokingly refer to us as fellow terrorist.

There is so much more and what has been written could be significantly expanded.

I can thank Bobby for my great morale.

(Poli, that is)