British nuclear testing in the United States would be foregone, and the Americans were under no obligation to make the test site available for subsequent tests. Also, as Lord Cherwell noted, an American test meant that "in the lamentable event of the bomb failing to detonate, we should look very foolish indeed." In the end, Monte Bello was chosen, and the first British atomic bomb was tested there in Operation Hurricane on 3 October 1952. The next British test series, Operation Totem, was conducted at Emu Field in South Australia, but at their conclusion, the British government formally requested a permanent testing site from the Australian government,
Agathe (atomic test) Agathe (atomic test) Agathe (aka Agate) was the name of the first French nuclear underground test. It was an atomic bomb detonated in the Hoggar mount (near In Ekker) of the then French Sahara desert on November 21, 1961, during the Algerian War (1954–62). Agathe was the first test of the jewel designation series running from 1961 until 1966. Minor and major incidents occurred during these experiments, the most important being the Beryl incident on May 1, 1962, where the nine militarymen of the "621ème Groupe d'Armes Spéciales" unit were heavily contaminated (600 mSv) as portrayed in the 2006 docudrama