I'd say it's a totally wrong take, but for a different reason. As a Cold War Kid, the reason I'd always heard for America's win was the Soviets were using base

I'd say it's a totally wrong take, but for a different reason. As a Cold War Kid, the reason I'd always heard for America's win was the Soviets were using base 3 computers while the US was using base 2. The base 3 systems gave the Soviets an early edge - they simply had greater computing power early on. That's the reason given for why the Soviets had so many firsts. The US achieved more computing power via the invention of the transistor and the miniaturization that enabled. The base 3 systems could not be miniaturized and so the Soviets had to start over from scratch. This gave the US the edge later on and so the US won the race to the moon in the end. Could be a Cold War myth, but that's the story I've heard for the past 45 or so years.