Forget about Marc Rich. If you want news about a far more controversial presidential pardon or commutation, go to the National Archives and listen to Richard Nixon cutting a deal to free Teamsters legend Jimmy Hoffa.

Previously undisclosed Nixon tapes leave no doubt that the Christmas 1971 commutation of Hoffa was heavily influenced by self-serving Nixon political considerations involving his 1972 re-election campaign and an obvious quid pro quo with Hoffa's successor as leader of the union.

For starters, the tapes prove that former Atty. Gen. John Mitchell lied to Watergate prosecutors in denying any political considerations in the Hoffa action. In addition, they bolster long-held, never-proven conspiracy theories about a deal between Nixon and Frank Fitzsimmons, Hoffa's successor, who wanted to make sure that his mentor would not be able to get his old job back.

They show Nixon and Mitchell agreeing not to release Hoffa before making sure that White House Counsel John Dean crafted a "conditional commutation" by which Hoffa would face clear restrictions on any return to the union. In the process, as Dean recalled Friday, they bypassed the normal Justice Department process, avoiding the department's pardon attorney.

It was all part of a Nixon payback to the clearly duplicitous Fitzsimmons, who was secretly trying to undermine the same Hoffa who engineered his nominal stewardship of the union while Hoffa was in prison. In return Nixon would get Teamsters political and other support.

And this all happened as Fitzsimmons was a member of the Pay Board, a key federal advisory panel making recommendations on wage and price controls to an independent Price Commission. Nixon needed labor members' votes on the board, but many were opposed to his desired wage restrictions.

While the tapes don't provide unequivocal evidence that the Teamsters union illegally funneled six-figure, perhaps seven-figure contributions to Nixon, as was conjectured, Nixon is curiously halting and discrete as he alludes in hushed tones to how Fitzsimmons had "been damn good in all of his private, ah, he's, you know, he's, he's, I know, he's done some things privately that are very helpful."

At bare minimum he is alluding to Teamster help like providing goons at anti-Vietnam War demonstrations. Is he referring to illegal financial help too?

"Do you insist that he [Hoffa] get out of labor and stay out of labor?" Mitchell is heard declaring to Nixon. "No. 2, do we want any commitment, whether confirmed or a tacit understanding, with respect to political help in '72? Both of them are available from what I understand. I'm sure we are all aware that we've had lots of communications on both sides of the fence."

In response to each Mitchell question, the answers prove to be an unequivocal yes.

One conversation took place in the Oval Office on Nov. 1, 1971, and involved Nixon, Mitchell, top Nixon aide H.R. Haldeman and George Shultz, then head of the Office of Management and Budget, later labor secretary and secretary of state. It came as the legendary Hoffa was in a federal prison serving concurrent, 13-year terms on separate jury tampering and pension fraud convictions.

He had been in prison since 1967 but had still been making most of the union's big decisions, while leaving day-to-day operations to Fitzsimmons, who had been a Hoffa lap dog. In June 1971, Hoffa formally resigned the Teamsters presidency, allowing the union's board to make Fitzsimmons the official candidate in its upcoming election.

Hoffa assumed that his action would win him points with his parole board. He was wrong. Two months after the union convention in Miami Beach elected Fitzsimmons, the board spurned Hoffa. A household name, Hoffa was admired by many unionists who also saw him as a victim of Atty. Gen. Robert Kennedy's crusade to put him behind bars.

As acerbic Mitchell enters the Oval Office, a Hoffa deal is the topic.

Nixon: Well, you've got a parole problem?

Mitchell: It's known as executive clemency, unfortunately.

Nixon: You mean the pardon problem?

Mitchell: Well, it's not a complete pardon, but there is an executive clemency aspect of it, where you would reduce the sentence enough so that he could get out of the clink. The pardon would be considered at a later date which probably would be better to hold over his head, to see what commitments he'll undertake and how he'll act in the matter.

Nixon: Executive clemency has the same problems.

Mitchell: Fitzsimmons, of course, has been pushing this thing for years and years.

Nixon: He wants executive clemency.

Mitchell: He wants Hoffa out of there. And he has had substantial troubles with his union because he isn't out of there, for whatever reason, or whatever conversations or commitments.

Nixon: And, there's the way it works, ah, who would recommend it?

Mitchell: Who would recommend it?

Nixon: Executive clemency. The attorney general? Or who does it? The pardons board or, ah . . . .

Mitchell: It's an absolute power with you, Mr. President. It can be scheduled any way you want to . . . We, of course, have this batch that's sitting, waiting for the Christmas season or whatever season you want to put them in the normal flow.

Nixon: Thanksgiving?

Mitchell: Whatever season you want to put it in, Thanksgiving or otherwise."

The attorney general says it would be more politically advantageous for Nixon, rather than a parole board, to free Hoffa and that clemency "might be related to the help of the Teamsters and Fitzsimmons on the Pay Board."

Keep in mind, the board was supposed to be totally independent from the White House. As Jack Grayson, the head of the Price Commission back then and now in charge of a Texas business group, informed me Friday, AFL-CIO President George Meany had extracted written assurances from Nixon that there would be no White House meddling.

Nixon asks Mitchell how they would "position," or "spin" in current parlance, a commutation. He urges accentuating how long Hoffa had served and "that he not be discriminated against because of his being a labor leader."

But Nixon, ever obsessed with the Kennedys, frets that Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) might criticize a commutation. Mitchell responds that "it could be terribly significant if Teddy turned out to be the candidate" for the Democrats the next year.