Morton Downey Jr., once a chain-smoking talk-show host, is fuming over claims that he has started smoking again.

He even quit his call-in radio talk show to work full time on suing the subject of his wrath: shock-jock Howard Stern. In a recent letter to WTAM, Downey said Stern had falsely accused him of smoking."He hasn't picked up a cigarette," Downey's publicist, Les Schecter, said Thursday. "He very much fears this will jeopardize his credibility."

Stern was on vacation and could not be reached for comment.

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