Albany-raised author spins experiences into novel

Jay Beck worked in Carter White House, on Panamanian, Greek campaigns

ALBANY — Writing was always a fun, free-time kind of thing for Jay Beck, the Atlanta-born, Albany-raised media specialist who was one of three reorganization functionaries in the Carter White House.

Beck wrote several family histories over the years, intrigued by the lore that was passed along at gatherings and chance meetings. It didn’t hurt that he was always a journal-keeper.

A few years back, a light went on for Beck. His journals were not limited to the minutiae of family triumphs, scandals and secrets. He also made notes of his time with the Carter Administration and the post-White House work he did with the New York-based Sawyer Miller agency that became a player in world politics.

Beck turned an intriguing story from a germ of historic conjecture into a thriller about Civil War-era treasure that was hidden away in Southwest Georgia, a work that became his first novel, “Treasure Hunt.” Now, the author has turned his attention to his work in the 1984 Panamanian presidential election, creating a historical novel that only a true insider could write, “Panama’s Rusty Lock.”

“Yeah, the first thing people want to know is how much of a book like this is true,” Beck said during a recent visit to Albany. “I’d say 80 percent of this novel is true. There are some made-up characters right in the middle of it, and I had to kind of simplify the election process in Panama because it’s so complicated. In 1984, there were 18 political parties in the country and eight candidates. I simplified that for the book.

“That’s one of the good things about writing, you get to make those decisions. I modeled the lead character in this book after myself, but I took the liberty to make that character a lot better looking and a lot smarter.”

Beck was born in Atlanta and moved to Albany with his family when his dad returned home from World War II. He remembers the Southwest Georgia hub as a simpler, more idyllic place.

“There were about 15,000 people in Albany then,” he said. “A lot of the streets we rode our bikes on were not paved then. My family lived in a house on Eager Street that was in a neighborhood of cookie-cutter GI homes that were all owned by WW II vets. It really was a simpler time, an Ozzie-and-Harriet kind of lifestyle.”

Beck earned a degree in English from the University of Georgia after graduating Albany High School and served 3 1/2 years in the Air Force before returning to Albany, where he worked for a period as a producer at local television station WALB.

“That job, frankly, wasn’t very interesting, so I started an ad agency,” Beck said. “There were none in Albany at the time, and we did a lot of work for farm implement companies and car dealerships. We also got involved in a lot of political campaigns.”

Beck had gotten his first taste of politics through his friendship with fellow Albanian Hamilton Jordan. He remembered the pair “licking envelopes for John Kennedy,” and Beck’s Albany Advertising Agency created ad campaigns for politicians like George Busbee, Dawson Mathis, Zell Miller, Al Holloway and Charles Hatcher. Contacts he made in those circles led Beck to join the so-called “Peanut Brigade” that helped Carter claim the presidency in 1976.

After the election, Beck said he asked old friend Jordan if he could “hide me somewhere in Washington.” He was selected as one of three individuals to work on government reorganization, and he said during his time in the nation’s capital the trio were instrumental in deregulating trucking, rail, shipping, communications, oil and gas.

“The amazing cellphone boom these days would not have been possible without the deregulation of Ma Bell,” Beck said. “Also, when you see all of these microbreweries that are going up all over the country now, we got rid of the laws that prohibited that kind of home brewing. A little-known fact from that time: We also helped cut U.S. oil imports in half during the Carter administration.”

After leaving Washington, Beck worked with Sawyer Miller at a time that American political expertise was sought worldwide. He worked during presidential elections in Panama and Greece and worked with Ross Perot’s independent presidential campaign in this country. (Beck’s next book will be a historical novel set during the presidential election in Greece.) The memories of those campaigns are vivid for Beck, and they inform his writing.

“Some of the stuff that went on, people just wouldn’t believe,” he said. “It was incredible to be a part of it, and even though we were forced to make decisions often with little or no factual information, the people we worked with put their trust in us. We also heard from people about the corruption in the country, and while it’s true our candidate was no choirboy, the other guy he was running against was an actual Nazi.

“There were some terrific people that we encountered, but there were also a lot of unattractive characters. The stories in ‘Panama’s Rusty Lock’ are sometimes exaggerated to a degree, but most of them are absolutely true. There’s stuff about Noriega, about the CIA, about the arms-for-drugs deal. It’s a fun story.”

Dougherty County Attorney Spencer Lee, who often holds book-signings and gatherings for authors and artists, said he plans to bring Beck to Albany at some point soon so that he can sign copies of “Panama’s Rusty Lock.” (The author underwent surgery shortly after the holidays and will be laid up for a period.) Until a local event is planned, information about Beck and his books is available at https://jaybeck.net/; https://www.pinterest.com/authorjaybeck/; https://twitter.com/authorjaybeck; https://www.instagram.com/authorjaybeck/, and https://www.facebook.com/Author-Jay-Beck-1631487190270921/.