Presidential hopeful hits back at 'smear campaign'

Black activist the Rev Al Sharpton today claimed he was the victim of a smear campaign after a 1983 tape showed him discussing a major drug deal with an undercover FBI agent.

The US presidential hopeful was offered thousands of dollars for arranging bulk sales of cocaine in the recording, which is to be screened for the first time tonight on the American HBO network.

He is shown listening and nodding as agent Victor Quintana, who posed as a South American drug dealer, described details of how he could get pure cocaine for $35,000 (€35,000) a kilogram.

‘‘Every kilogram we bring in is $3,500 (€3,500) to you ... so we bring in 10, you’ll make $35,000 (€35,000),’’ says Quintana.

Sharpton replies: ‘‘I hear you.’’

No drug deal was ever agreed and no charges were brought against him as a result of the tape.

The 47-year-old said he played along with the Quintana because he feared he may have been armed.

‘‘It’s not damaging at all. It’s a vindication of what I have been saying for years. This is nothing but a smear campaign.’’

He said if anything, the tape would help rally support for his planned run for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination.

‘‘For 18 years the government has been trying to find a way to get at me.’’

Sharpton is not considered a serious candidate for the presidency, or even the Democratic nomination, but the election does give him the chance to replace Jesse Jackson as the new face of US civil rights.

In previous unsuccessful bids for the US Senate in 1992 and 1994 and for New York mayor in 1997 he won the vast majority of the black vote.

Sharpton, whose base is in Harlem, New York, is a founder of a civil rights organisation called National Action Network.

Writer Tom Wolfe based the rabble-rousing character Rev Bacon on Sharpton in his satire of 1980s New York, Bonfire of the Vanities.