1958 US–UK Mutual Defence Agreement as an atomic spy, caused the proposal to be dropped. The June 1951 defection of Donald Maclean, who had served as a British member of the Combined Policy Committee from January 1947 to August 1948, reinforced the Americans' distrust of British security arrangements. The first British atomic bomb was successfully tested in Operation Hurricane on 3 October 1952, but although it was more advanced than the American bombs of 1946, Britain was still several years behind in nuclear weapons technology. The United States conducted Ivy Mike, the first nuclear test of a true thermonuclear device (also known as a hydrogen
Shippingport Atomic Power Station Shippingport Atomic Power Station The Shippingport Atomic Power Station was (according to the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission) the world’s first full-scale atomic electric power plant devoted exclusively to peacetime uses. It was located near the present-day Beaver Valley Nuclear Generating Station on the Ohio River in Beaver County, Pennsylvania, United States, about 25 miles (40 km) from Pittsburgh. The reactor reached criticality on December 2, 1957, and aside from stoppages for three core changes, it remained in operation until October 1982. The first electrical power was produced on December 18, 1957 as engineers synchronized the plant with the distribution grid