Hoffa Home Free

Four years and nine months ago, after strenuous efforts by the Kennedy Administration to get him jailed, Teamster Boss James Hoffa walked through the gates of the federal penitentiary in Lewisburg, Pa., to start serving a 13-year sentence for jury tampering and mail fraud. Last week Jimmy Hoffa walked out, his sentence commuted by order of President Nixon. The Justice Department announcement noted that Hoffa had been a well-behaved prisoner and indicated that Nixon had acted largely for humanitarian reasons: Hoffa's wife Josephine is recovering from a heart attack.

Some read the commutation in a different light. Despite his imprisonment, Hoffa remains tremendously popular with his union's rank and file. The Administration has been assiduously wooing the Teamsters, the nation's largest union. Moreover, the President has had problems lately with his party's right wing, and one of the chief agitators for Hoffa's release has been William Loeb, archconservative publisher of the Manchester (N.H.) Union Leader.

The Administration openly struck one bargain with Hoffa: his commutation requires that he "not engage in the direct or indirect management of any labor organization prior to March 1980." By then, he will be 67.

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