Criticomm

CRITICOM(M) is an abbreviation for "Critical Intelligence Communications [System]" q.v. National Security Agency (NSA) former flash-intelligence alert and warning system. N.B. The official intelligence-community (IC) abbreviation uses two Ms.

The Critical Intelligence Communications network, or CRITICOMM, is designed to flash to the American President and a handful of other senior officials intelligence alerts and warnings of the highest priority—an imminent coup in a Middle East sheikdom, for example, or the assassination of a world leader, or the sinking of a Soviet sub. It is the goal of NSA to have such a CRITIC message on the President's desk within ten minutes of the event.

. . . . In 1973 NSA's CRITICOM/SPINTCOM network was transformed into the Digital Network-Defense Special Security Communications System (DIN/DSCSS), which fully integrated the message traffic into the Defense Department's general service AUTODIN network (automatic digital network).

Sources

• The Puzzle Palace, A Report on America's Most Secret Agency, by James Bamford, Houghton Mifflin 1982,p104
• CIA Insider's Dictionary of US and Foreign Intelligence, Counterintelligence and Tradecraft, edited by Leo D. Carl, NIBC Press, Washington, DC