After finishing law school in 1947, Bundy joined the Washington-based law firm of Covington and Burling. While there, he contributed to Alger Hiss's defense fund in the Hiss-Chambers Case. In 1953, Senator Joseph McCarthy cited his $400 contribution. Bundy explained that Donald Hiss, Alger's brother, worked with him at Covington & Burling. Allen Dulles and Vice President Richard M. Nixon defended him, and the matter dropped. (Bundy's father, Harvey Hollister Bundy, Sr., served as chairman of the board at Carnegie from 1953 to 1958, not long after Hiss served as president from 1946 to 1949.)