That story is apocryphal.
Pencils aren’t suitable in space because the last thing you want are little wood and graphite shavings floating around the capsule.
Both the US and Russia used grease pens.
The Fischer space pen was developed by a private company with no public investment and was marketed to the government and public.
bss03@infosec.pub 23 hours ago
You used “story”, so I’ll assume you know this is mostly untrue, but for any of the lucky 10k that hasn’t heard: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Pen#Uses_in_the_U.S._…