Two senior members of the Harvard International Review (HIR) have resigned in the past month, complaining of "intellectual snobbery" and unrealistic demands placed on them by top executives of the magazine.

"Basically the journal has gotten in over its head," Special Features Editor Anne W. Walker '96 said in a telephone interview yesterday.

In the past month, Walker and Features Editor Peter J. Jun '96 have resigned for separate reasons from the magazine, which specializes in international affairs and is distributed internationally.

Military and Science Editor Cameron E. Half '96 resigned as well as, for unrelated reasons, he said. Half went on to take another position within the International Relations Council (IRC), the body that runs HIR, in the Model United Nations board.

Walker and Jun are no longer affiliated with any branch of the group, however.

According to Walker, the new executive guard, which took office in October, has placed unreasonable quality and time demands upon the editors and staff as they seek to bring HIR to the level of major professional foreign policy journals.

The executive board has had difficulty in reconciling the fact that HIR is distributed to newsstands across the country, competing with many of the other top foreign policy journals, with the fact that its staff is composed of undergraduates, Walker said.

"Yes, we want to produce the best journal possible, but given that we are students and the journal is not our job, you have to face reality," Walker said.

"We're losing too many people because of the time commitment," Walker added.

Jun agreed with Walker but added that a perception of intellectual snobbery on the 18-member executive board had exacerbated the gap between the board and staff.

According to Jun, slogans such as "the managing editor is the end all and be all and the editor-in-chief is the be all and end all" caused controversy among executive board members.

Jun said that the atmosphere on the magazine in the past had been much more relaxed and less hectic.

Walker resigned in early March after some changes she had suggested were not implemented quickly enough, Jun said.

"She just couldn't handle the problems anymore," Jun said. "There's no reason for someone to put on this kind of pressure for an extracurricular activity.

But Editor in Chief Ramin Toloui-Tehrani '96 dismissed his ex-staffers' complaints.