Section 401(h) of the Mutual Security Act of 1959 (73 Stat. 253),

which directs that the expenses of the Office of the Inspector General and Comptroller with respect to programs under the Mutual Security Act be charged to the appropriations made to carry out such programs, provided that all documents, reports, and other materials relating to the operations and activities of that Office are furnished upon request to the General Accounting Office, or to any appropriate congressional committee or duly authorized subcommittee, does not authorize the funds of the Office of the Inspector General and Comptroller to be cut off because of the failure of the State Department to furnish certain documents relating to that Office to a congressional subcommittee, if the President has issued a certificate pursuant to section 101(d) of the Mutual Security and Related Agencies Appropriation Act, 1961 (74 Stat. 778), to the effect that he has forbidden the production of those documents and states his reasons for so doing. A contrary conclusion reached by the Comptroller General is incorrect, and, therefore, funds continue to be available as heretofore for the Office of the Inspector General and Comptroller.

The proviso in section 533A(d) does not expressly authorize the funds of the Office of the Inspector General and Comptroller to be cut off, and such a drastic consequence should not lightly be inferred from ambiguous statutory language. Other provisions of the Mutual Security Act of 1959, the Mutual Security Act of 1960 (74 Stat. 134), the Mutual Security and Related Agencies Appropriation Act, 1960 (73 Stat. 717), and the Mutual Security and Related Agencies Appropriation Act, 1961, indicate a congressional purpose not to compel the disclosure of information concerning the mutual security program which the President considers to be incompatible with the security of the United States. Section 533A(d) should be read in the light of this purpose.

Section 533A(d) has been suspended by section 101(d) of the Mutual Security and Related Agencies Appropriation Act, 1961, which provides that the failure to furnish documents, etc., to Congress or to the Comptroller General will not result in a cutoff of appropriated funds if the President certifies that he has prohibited the production of the documents and states the reasons for this action.

A construction of the proviso to section 533A(d), requiring funds for the Office of the Inspector General and Comptroller to be cut off for failure to supply documents, notwithstanding the President’s certification, must be avoided because it not only creates constitutional doubts, but would, if correct, render the proviso unconstitutional. Congress cannot by direct action compel the President to furnish to it information the disclosure of which he considers contrary to the national interest. It cannot achieve this result indirectly by placing a condition upon the expenditure of appropriated funds.