...........and I am convinced the Americans DID land astronauts on the moon and it was a tremendous achievement, which involved not just one, but many Apollo missions.
In addition any deception would have taken one hell of a 'cover up' involving thousands of people, along with the Russians. They would have been the first to expose it, as do not forget the Russions had Lunik probes 1 - 3 circling the moon to gather information in 1959, before in 1966 they
successfully landed Lunik 9 onto the surface of the moon to take samples as to the consistency of the surface.
Any subsequent "trick" by the Americans would have been quickly spotted by the very competitive USSR and exposed to the World. However, they no doubt witnessed the American landings via their Lunik space craft and, with much dismay, had to admit they had been beaten in landing a man on the moon. Any chance to belittle the USA would have been taken then, or since, but the USSR simply could not. The facts, even to the USSR in the midst of the cold war (the Cuban missile crisis had only been 7 years before), could not be disputed then, nor now.