It's also an urban myth. Not even the russians are crazy enough to use a pencil in a high oxygen zero g space capsule. Graphite is both flammable and conductive. Pencil shavings or a broken tip could short circuit panels or potentially start fires. Wax crayons were used instead for a long time for that reason.
Also i believe nasa's pen was developed independently by a private company at no cost to the government.
Sorry for the derail. Only recently discovered this and thought it was interesting.
