War of ideas in the Middle East: failure of the US

I need to write an article about this but yesterday it occurred to me that the US lost the war of ideas during the Cold War, all celebrations to the contrary notwithstanding.  All those who worked for the Soviet Union did so for free and volunteered their services while all those who supported the US did so for a fee.  This is still the case today.  There has never been a movement or a demonstration (there was never one) that supported a US cause which was not paid for by the US.  The US won the money war and not the ideas war.  All those who spied for the US did so for a fee, while those who spied for the Soviet Union did so for free.  How embarrassing for the self-praising empire.