While browsing through my CD-ROM of Microsoft Bookshelf '95 tonight I stumbled across the following (emphasis mine):

Exploration and Colonization, 1969
Man walks on the moon for the first time July 21 as U.S. astronaut Neil A. Armstrong steps out of the lunar module from Apollo 11 and is joined by his companion Edwin E. "Buzz" Aldrin, Jr., 39. Armstrong is watched on television by much of the world but millions of Americans believe the moon walk was staged in a studio to divert attention from the Vietnam War (see 1969); many millions more demand that money and technology be applied to more socially productive purposes.

This is news to me -- I've never seen any mention of a hoax dated 1969. Is there any truth in it, or is it more likely the view of a 1990s hoax-believer? I know that there is some truth in the final part.

Microsoft licensed their Chronology as follows: "The People's Chronology is licensed from Henry Holt and Company, Inc. Copyright © 1994 by James Trager. All rights reserved."

Yes, it's likely true. Although little exists in print prior to 1974, the astronauts and other NASA folks tell us there were hoax accusations as early as 1969.

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"Facts are stubborn things." --John Adams
Clavius Moon Base

Something that may be related to the above can be found in the book, "A Thread Across the Ocean: The Heroic Story Of The Transatlantic Cable" by John S Gordon (2002, Simon & Schuster edition).

After discussing the failure of the first (1858) cable, he mentions that at one point people believed that the whole thing had been faked. In the footnote on the same page (140) it says:

Aside from anything else, I've never seen this version of the story before, every other time I've seen it they either mention Holywood or Nevada.

Graham

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We all know those Venusians: Doing their hair in shock waves, smoking electrical coronas, wearing Van Allen belts and resting their tiny elbows on a Geiger counter...

John Sladek, The New Apocrypha, pg 34.