The select statement is very long so I'll give it to you in a shorter version:
Select FileNo, Description from Tbl into cursor TempTbl

It only works when I do the following but it results in lost data:
Select FileNo, padr(alltrim(Description),254) as desc from Tbl into cursor TempTbl

However, I noticed that if I CREATE TABLE prior to the SELECT and do an INSERT, the problem disappears. It's just a very tedious and long recode project.