Trident (UK nuclear programme) Agreement merged with the American Manhattan Project to create a combined American, British, and Canadian project. The British government expected that the United States would continue to share nuclear technology, which it regarded as a joint discovery, but the United States Atomic Energy Act of 1946 (McMahon Act) ended technical co-operation. Fearing a resurgence of United States isolationism, and Britain losing its great power status, the British government resumed its own development effort. The first British atomic bomb was tested in Operation Hurricane on 3 October 1952. The subsequent British development of the hydrogen bomb, and a fortuitous international relations
British nuclear testing in the United States which led to the agreement on the use of the Maralinga test site in August 1954. The first of the British nuclear tests at Maralinga was held in September 1956. While British atomic bomb development represented an extraordinary scientific and technological achievement, hopes that the United States would be sufficiently impressed to restore the nuclear Special Relationship were dashed. In November 1952, the United States conducted Ivy Mike, the first successful test of a true thermonuclear device or hydrogen bomb. Britain was therefore still several years behind in nuclear weapons technology. The Defence Policy Committee, chaired by Churchill and consisting