Hi Dennis,
I've kind of sworn off of 2.6, but I'm pretty sure DEACTIVATE WINDOW does not CLEAR the READ. THe Help function does not answer the question, but if you issue a ? RDLEVEL() before and after, it will tell you.

I think the command you want is the READ CYCLE. This keeps the single READ in effect while traversing multi-window @.. GETs. If you are not using event-driven coding, this may not work. From the Command line, issue a HELP READ and study the command-it's a lot more complicated than the old dBase READ...

Good luck.