Against the Wind - National Air Traffic Controllers Association

was singled out with
five other controllers
in Washington,
D.C., and Virginia
and arrested on felony
charges of striking
against the government.
Kenneth Conklin,
the attorney who
represented Thornton
and two other defendants,
negotiated a
settlement with the
Justice Department
in which they would
plead no contest to
misdemeanor contempt
charges and pay
a small fine.
But two weeks
before Christmas in
1981, the final court
hearing took an unexpected turn.
“The government has made its
point, but the court’s point is a little different:
the integrity of its orders,” District
Judge Albert Bryan Jr. told Conklin and
his clients. 2
“They made one mistake,” Conk-
Courtesy of Howie Barte
John Thornton: The former PATCO controller
found himself organizing a largely
new work force two years after the strike.
lin argued in their
defense. “They didn’t
go back to work.” 3
Unmoved, the
judge ignored the plea
bargain agreement
and sentenced the
defendants to ten days
in the Fairfax County
Jail.
Thornton, Tom
Galloway, who had
been the PATCO
president at Washington
Center, and another
center controller
named Bill Lombardi
Jr. glanced at each
other in shock. When
the hearing concluded,
federal marshals
handcuffed the three
nervous men, secured their legs with
shackles, and shuffled them out the back
door of the courthouse to an official car.
In a conciliatory gesture, another
judge reduced the $5,000 fines levied
against Thornton and Galloway to $1,000
each later that day. *
Chapter 3: A Long and Winding Road
To their relief, the three controllers
were locked up together in the same
cellblock with older, non-violent inmates.
For ten sobering days, they slept fitfully
on mattresses on the floor and listened as
guards regularly broke up fights among
younger convicts across the hall. The
worst moment for Thornton came that
first night when he faced his wife and
daughter through the thick glass separating
him from the visitors’ room.
Ginny had been present at all previous
hearings, but on Thornton’s advice
she skipped the final court appearance on
the assumption that it would be routine.
Alerted by his attorney, she quickly called
relatives before they watched the evening
news. Eleven-year-old Michelle handled it
well, too, though Thornton still worried
that the experience would frighten her.
When the trio was released, 200
controllers and their families massed
outside the jailhouse to greet them in a
touching show of support.
* Fines were also reduced for the PATCO presidents from
Dulles Tower/TRACON and Newport News, Virginia. Stephen
Wallaert of Norfolk Tower/TRACON was not fined,
but spent a week in jail in August 1981.
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