The number of 60 million unnecessary deaths in the cold war comes from former CIA Task Force Chief John Stockwell.
The number includes the murders of people indentified as communists or others opposed to US sponsored governments in civil conflicts which would not have occured if it were not for US covert action.
In Vietnam, for example, US overt warmaking such as bombing of villages and cities in the south and north was only one source of killing. US covert action in having installed and supported the Diem regime from 1952 till the US killed him in 1963 killed countless people and destroyed thousands of villages before the US entered the conflict with military means.
In Indonesia the US tried since 1957 to stage coups to oust Sukarno, who was only neutralist and not pro-communist. They didn't succeed until 1965, and thereafter the Indonesian military killed well over one million landless peasants who were believed to be "sympathetic" to the PKI, the local communist party.
This kind of thing directed against local and non-aligned and neutralist forces and groups is what made up the casualty numbers.
It was all pointless because non of these communist parties were devoted to Moscow or Peking.
Each and every one of these parties was independent, and sought independent relations with the Chinese and Russians just as Tito had in Yougoslavia.
But the US and CIA was sooooooo stupid that they made no distinctions, and this was the case because within CIA the leadership was a bunch of right-wing imperialist nutballs who thought anything short of total free market capitalism should be conflated with Stalinism.
It was the far right wing ideology of the CIA leaders, all of whom came from Wall Street and the banking community, who brought this genocide about.