Board Members Quit To Protest Carter's Book

ATLANTA — Fourteen members of an advisory board to President Carter's human-rights organization resigned on yesterday to protest his book.

The resignations from the Carter Center board are the latest backlash against the former president's book "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid," which has drawn fire from Jewish groups, been attacked by fellow Democrats, and led to the resignation last month of a center fellow and a longtime Carter adviser, Kenneth Stein.

"You have clearly abandoned your historic role of broker in favor of becoming an advocate for one side," the departing members of the center's board of councilors told Mr. Carter in their letter of resignation. The 200-member board is responsible for building public support for the Carter Center. It is not the organization's governing board.

The board's members "are not engaged in implementing work of the Center," Carter Center Executive Director John Hardman said yesterday in a news release.

A spokeswoman for Mr. Carter and the center, Deanna Congileo, issued Mr. Hardman's statement in response to the Associated Press's request for comment from Mr. Carter.