There was a made for television movie produced in the late 1980’s that tried to tell the story behind the atomic bombing of Japan in World War II. It wasn’t “a great movie” by most measures but it wasn’t a bad one either. For me the crazy cool part of it was that Billy Crystal played my father, Jacob Beser, who was the only man on both atomic bomb missions over Japan. He didn’t get that job for any greater reason than, of everyone who knew how to execute the mission, he was the most expendable. Dad was a technical advisor for the movie.

After Dad died something happened that I will never forget. I’m sure the movie wasn’t on Billy Crystal’s personal list of favorite roles played, but the day Dad died the very first thing delivered to the house was a huge basket from Billy Crystal with his condolences. Thinking about it, while the role didn’t make Hollywood’s various lists and the movie is *really* hard to find now, playing Dad in this movie probably was meaningful to Billy Crystal in some personal sense.

I recently discovered that the movie was posted on YouTube. To my knowledge, unless you still have a VCR, this YouTube posting is the only place you’ll find it. I couldn't resist linking to it here.

Larry A Beser

Enterprise Architecture

Technology Strategy

​Collaboration & Innovation