The popularity Nixon came to enjoy for helping to prove that Alger Hiss had spied for the Soviet Union stemmed in part from the contrast between his own regular-Joe persona and Hiss' suspect air of refinement—the striped pants and courtly demeanor, the genteel Anglophilia, the Harvard degrees. Indeed, even many liberals admired Nixon's work, and the press coverage he received was overwhelmingly positive. Still, Nixon, prone to feelings of victimization, exaggerated in his own mind the extent to which reporters disliked him for his role in the Hiss case.