There were at least three main ways in which this happened.
First, there were many ordinary Americans who either personally were involved in the conflicts that arose from containment or who had family that was personally involved. We must remember that during these decades, the two major wars of containment, Korea and Vietnam, occurred. These wars touched the lives of many Americans who served in them or who had family who served in them.
Second, there was the nervousness and stress that the policy of containment brought about. Because the US was in conflict with the Soviet Union and was trying to contain it, there was always the fear of war. In the 1950s, for example, there were the “duck and cover” drills in schools and the ubiquity of fallout shelters. These sorts of things made life seem less secure.
Finally, it is possible to argue that containment helped to...
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bring about the conformity that was seen in the ‘50s and the rebellion that arose in the ‘60s. Containment and the fear of communism encouraged people to conform for fear of being though un-American. The protests of the ‘60s arose in part in response to such attitudes.
Thus, the containment policy of the Cold War had serious impacts on the lives of ordinary Americans.
How did 1960s Cold War containment actions impact ordinary Americans' lives?
These two episodes in the Cold War really did not have that much of a lasting impact on the everyday lives of ordinary Americans. This is particularly true of the Bay of Pigs invasion. Even the Cuban Missile Crisis did not have a long-lasting impact. While the crisis was going on, people were, of course, quite worried about what might happen. However, the fear that was brought on by the crisis did not end up affecting people that much in the long term.
During the 1960s, the aspect of containment that really made a huge difference in people’s lives was the Vietnam War. Where the Cuban Missile Crisis lasted two weeks, the Vietnam War was going on to some extent throughout the decade. Where very few Americans were directly involved in the Cuban Missile Crisis, more than 2.5 million Americans served in uniform in Vietnam. Something like 58,000 Americans died there. This, of course, had a tremendous impact on Americans in general.
The Vietnam War also affected the lives of those who did not serve and did not have family who served. It led to major dissension within the US. Americans split very severely over the issue of whether to support the war.
In these ways, the major containment action in the 1960s in terms of affecting ordinary Americans was the Vietnam War.