_Reporting to Committees_: The requirement that administrative units report to superiors, to Congress, or to units of the latter, may be designed to achieve many purposes. The requirement may be devoid of any overtone of control--e.g., its aim may be limited solely to providing of technical information or advice as an aid to policy formulation, or it may be utilized to promote maximum scrutiny and control of executive action. For when one must report in detail and frequently on the discharge of delegated functions, it is necessary either to attempt to mislead the Congress--a dangerous pastime--or to toe the line and act as a meticulous surrogate of the legislature, in anticipation of an imminent accounting with it. Thus it would be difficult to distinguish the informative and control purposes of the provision of the Supplemental National Defense Appropriations Act of 1948 requiring that the Secretary of Defense report quarterly “to the Committees on Appropriations and Armed Services of the Congress ... the amounts obligated” for “the construction of aircraft and equipment.” The Secretary’s reports were to include a statement of finding by the President that the contracts let were necessary in the interest of the national defense and that the contract specifications insured the maximum utilization of improvements in aircraft and equipment consistent with the defense needs of the United States.[561] The Mutual Defense Assistance Act of 1949 permitted the President, upon his own determination of the need therefore, to transfer funds from one project to another provided for in the Act. The amounts transferred could not exceed five percent of the total funds appropriated.[562] Whenever he made such a determination, however, he was required forthwith to notify the Committee on Foreign Relations of the Senate, the Committees on Armed Services of the Senate and of the House of Representatives, and the Committee on Foreign Affairs own determination of the need therefore, to transfer funds from one to report to the Congress biannually on the administration of the Act.[563] The Mutual Security Act of 1951 contained a similar provision.[564] Similar to the above is the 1950 requirement that the Secretary of the Navy annually file with the Committees on Armed Services in the Congress information as to the proceeds of all sales of condemned naval material and the expenses connected with such sales.[565] The 1950 statute permitting the summary suspension of civilian officers and employees of specified departments and agencies (State, Commerce, Justice, Defense, Treasury, Atomic Energy Commission, National Security Resources Board, National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics) gave the President authority to extend the list of agencies to which the Act applied. Any additions to the list, however, had to be based upon the best interests of national security and communicated to the Committees on the Armed Services of the Congress.[566]