Afghanistan was safe from ever becoming a Soviet satellite state. From the 1950s to 1979, U.S. foreign assistance provided Afghanistan with more than $500 million in loans, grants, and surplus agricultural commodities to develop transportation facilities, increase agricultural production, expand the educational system, stimulate industry, and improve government administration. In 1963, King Zahir Shah of Afghanistan made a special state visit to the United States where he was met by John F. Kennedy and Eunice Kennedy Shriver. Zahir Shah also took a special tour of the United States, visiting Disney Land in California, New York and other places. Habibullah Karzai, uncle of Hamid Karzai who served as representative of Afghanistan at the United Nations, is also believed to have accompanied Zahir Shah in the course of the King's state visit. During this period the Soviets were beginning to feel that the United States was turning Afghanistan into a satellite state. In 1965, Afghanistan and Cuba saw the establishment of communist parties, the Communist Party of Cuba and the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA). Vice President Spiro Agnew, accompanied by Apollo 10 astronauts Thomas Stafford and Eugene Cernan, visited Kabul during an eleven-nation tour of Asia. At a formal dinner hosted by the Royal Family, the American delegation presented the King with a piece of lunar rock, a small Afghan flag carried on the Apollo 11 flight to the moon, and photographs of Afghanistan taken from space. By the 1970s, numerous American teachers, engineers, doctors, scholars, diplomats, and explorers had traversed Afghanistan's rugged landscape where they lived and worked. The Peace Corps was active in Afghanistan between 1962 and 1979. Many other American programs were running in the country such as CARE, American Scouting overseas (Afghanistan Scout Association), USAID, and others. Left-wing government, Soviet invasion and civil war After the April 1978 Saur Revolution, relations between the two nations became spotty. While the Democratic Republic regime remained officially nonaligned and opened diplomatic relations with the U.S. by June 1978, as time went on Afghanistan's increasing bond in the Soviet orbit was a cause of concern. Secretary of State Cyrus Vance said at the time "We need to take into account the mix of nationalism and communism in the new leadership and seek to avoid driving the regime into a closer embrace with the Soviet Union than it might wish." The new American Ambassador Adolph "Spike" Dubs told a visiting official