Hello Eric,
It appears you may aleady have dialect(rm) turned on, either through $set dialect(rm) or through the Eclipse. In either event, the ECHO entry in Working Storage will be flagged as a reserved item if dialect(rm) is on. Using the default MF/COBOL dialect should enable ECHO to be set as a varible in Working Storage. This is a case where the RM Dialect does not provide 100% compatibility. We recommend that you use the Compatibility Guide, in the online help facility, under Micro Focus Visual COBOL 2.2 ...., Programming, Compatibility, Compatility with RM/COBOL Applications, to modify the code so that you will not need to use dialect(rm).