Snapple Fights Rumors About Kkk

SAN FRANCISCO - Snapple Beverage Co., the Long Island-based maker of iced teas and fruit drinks, launched a five-day media campaign in the San Francisco area yesterday to combat rumors that the fast-growing company supports the Ku Klux Klan and Operation Rescue.

Titled "The Plain Truth," the full-page ad is running in Bay Area newspapers and is being heard on radio.

It takes the form of a letter from the company's three senior officers, Hyman Golden, Leonard Marsh and Arnold Greenberg.

Addressed to "friends," it says: "We are not involved in any way whatsoever with the KKK, Operation Rescue or any other type of pressure group or organization, period. The rumors that are circulating about us are false, wrong and outrageous."

Operation Rescue is an anti-abortion group.