Describe a little-known and remarkable fact about the CIA

The CIA fostered and promoted American Abstract Expressionist painting around the world for about 30 years, and was remarkably successful in doing so.[1] 

The decision to include culture and art was made when the CIA was founded in 1947.  In 1950, the International Organisations Division (IOD) of the CIA was set up. It subsidized the animated version of George Orwell's Animal Farm, sponsored American jazz artists, many opera recitals and the Boston Symphony Orchestra's international touring program.

Rebutting the idea of America as a cultural desert

During the 1950s, Senator Joe McCarthy's hysterical denunciations of the avant-garde and unorthodox were deeply embarrassing. They discredited the idea that America was a sophisticated, culturally rich democracy.

Why Abstract Expressionism?

Jackson Pollock was one of the artists whose work the CIA helped to promote. Summertime Number 9A via Art Crimes on Flickr

It was recognized that Abstract Expressionism was the kind of art that made Socialist Realism look even more stylized and more rigid and confined than it was... Moscow in those days was very vicious in its denunciation of any kind of non-conformity to its own very rigid patterns.[2]

One could accurately reason that anything the USSR criticized that much and that heavily was worth supporting.

1 https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/2014/02/03/dear-president-obama-in-defense-of-the-art-degree/
2 http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/modern-art-was-cia-weapon-1578808.html