Was the wests policy of initiating coups throughout the third world during the cold war justified?

Now, watch conservatives try and deny that the US has ever covertly overthrown a democratically elected government. As to whether or not it was necessary: without judging the merits or communism vs capitalism, I must say that the attempt to contain the spread of communism was necessary to ensure the continued existence of the US. If the USSR was allowed to convert the globe into socialist republics, it would have led to revolution in the US as well as Western Europe, and the entire world would have eventually been a communist republic. Again, I'm not commenting on the supremacy of either communism or capitalism. From a self-preservation standpoint, yes, I feel that the effort to contain communism was justified.