You might be interested...
My wife used the winner of this competition (the work byReg Butler) in her work - and i remember her saying one of the organisers was a "cultural attaché" (AKA CIA agent) i think in the US embassy in Sweden.... she was unaware of the use of such terms...
"The competition for the Monument to the Unknown Political Prisoner was announced in 1952 by the London Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA). It achieved its outstanding importance because it offered artists a broad international forum for the first time after World War II and, against the background of the East-West conflict in the post-war period it reflected a highly ideological (art) policy.
Artists from all countries were invited to participate; there were no restrictions on age, origin or style in order to achieve the highest possible number of responses. As the announcement did not specify which political prisoners were to be commemorated, those of National Socialism, for example, or those who Stalin had imprisoned at the time, the Eastern Bloc and the Soviet Union boycotted the competition. In addition, US authorities, including the CIA, were suspected of being involved in the financing of the competition."
"On 15 March, the day after the opening of the exhibition, Butler's prize-winning maquette was severely damaged by a twenty-eight year old Hungarian refugee, Laslo Szilvassy, who was arrested and charged the following day with malicious damage, a charge he admitted." ????
https://kunsthaus-dahlem.de/en/ausstellung/the-unknown-political-prisoner/Also here and elsewhere...
https://www.jstor.org/stable/1360716?seq=1I think the CIA also sponsored the experimental music of Karlheinz Stockhausen but have no references..
