"The fact that there is a dialogue now between the United States and the P.L.O. and the fact that for the first time we and our ally Israel are not winning the public-relations battle."

So far, Washington has turned a deaf ear to the aid requests, concerning itself more with a political and public-relations battle with the Nicaraguan rebel leaders in Miami.

When someone suggested to Piazza that the players should not strike and should allow the owners to make the first move so that the players would win the public-relations battle, he swatted away that theory.

That might have been the last public-relations battle he won.

The latest foray in his political and public-relations battle with Mr. Giuliani had been a grand success.

Instead, what was once considered a gentlemen's sport was dragged into a legal and public-relations battle that threatened to tarnish the competition permanently.

The company has been waging legal and public-relations battles since news organizations reported this spring that its scientists had evidence decades ago that the nicotine in cigarettes was addictive, but that the company concealed the findings.

Usually occupied with helping the world's poorest children, a Connecticut-based charity has recently become embroiled in a nettlesome legal and public-relations battle over its own name.

In the public-relations battle for world opinion, they said, Israel might have fared better with Mr. Arafat on hand, unsettling some people with his familiar headdress, scratchy beard and verbal overdrive.

The suit is the latest, and certainly the biggest, volley in a legal and public-relations battle waged between Mr. Kazarian and the company he once ran as chairman, chief executive and president.