Critics charged that the technique deployed by the White Paper was to correlate events in El Salvador into alleged examples of Soviet and Cuban military involvement.

The White Paper was claimed to be part of a propaganda effort to diverting attention from U.S. support for a repressive regime by creating a false threat of communist insurgency.

On June 9, 1981, Wall Street Journal reporter Jonathan Kwitny published an article based on a three-hour interview with Glassman.

In the article, Glassman admitted "mistakes and guessing" by the government's intelligence analysts who translated and explained the guerrilla documents.

Kwitny noted that "A close reading of the white paper indicates… that its authors probably were making a determined effort to create a 'selling' document, no matter how slim the background material".

[11][12] Glassman had been head of a small group of diplomats who remained in the embassy during the last day of fighting between the Mujahadeen and the Soviet-backed Afghan régime.

In February 1989, Secretary of State James Baker decided to withdraw this small group of diplomats, so that they did not become hostages, and to otherwise protect them from harm.

[16] On July 6, 2001, Glassman received $10,000, as part of a civil settlement to resolve allegations that he violated the post-employment conflict of interest law applicable to federal employees.