According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, John Hoffman Jr. is "actively engaged in farming." He sells timber and hay harvested from his 800-acre Seward Mountain Farm in Sullivan. Yet, about 20 years ago, Hoffman was "actively engaged" in quite another kind of activity with the U.S. government. A lawyer in New York City who specialized in international financial investment and trade problems, he was instrumental in the negotiations with Iran that lead to the release of 52 Americans being held hostage in the U.S. embassy in Tehran.

The year was 1980 and the hostages had been held since November 4, 1979, when Iranian students seized the embassy after President Jimmy Carter approved admitting the exiled shah of Iran to the U.S. for medical treatment. Hoffman was a partner in the law firm of Shearman & Sterling. One of his clients was Citibank, which had several hundred million dollars in Iranian deposits in its banks in New York, London and Paris. These assets, as well as the assets in several other U.S. banks, were to become a crucial bargaining chip in the negotiations with the Iranian government to free the hostages.

Shortly after the hostages were taken, President Carter had frozen all Iranian assets in the U.S. and in U.S. banks in other countries. This began a wave of litigation in several countries.

"My client, Citibank, had a lot of Iranian deposits as well as a lot of claims against Iran for loans," explains Hoffman. "When Carter froze the assets in U.S. banks in foreign countries, it wasn't clear if the courts in England or France would recognize the freeze. It was based on a legal theory that had never been tested."

These legal interactions between U.S. attorneys and attorneys representing Iran in various countries lead to an unusual role for the banks and lawyers in the resolution of the hostage crisis.

"The opposing lawyers had to be together in courts in the U.S., England, France and Germany, where the litigation was taking place," says Hoffman. "It became clear through the lawyers that there was a sentiment in Iran for resolving the crisis. They had our people and we had their money."

Thus began, for Hoffman, several months of intense involvement with the U.S. Government, particularly the departments of State and Treasury, and secret meetings all over the world with attorneys and diplomats representing the Iranian government. Only two people in Hoffman's firm, his secretary and a senior partner, knew what he was really working on.

The meetings and negotiations all culminated in a harrowing 90 hours holed up in U.S. Treasury Department offices carving out the final details of the financial agreement that lead to the release of the hostages on January 20, 1981, the day of President Ronald Reagan's inauguration.

Later, a book about the hostage crisis titled "American Hostages in Iran: The Conduct of a Crisis," by former Secretary of State Warren Christopher, Hoffman and others, was published by the National Council on Foreign Relations.

"Everything had moved so fast," Hoffman says. "The Council thought it was a good idea to set the record straight before everyone started writing their biographies and engaging in creative history."

Ironically, the legal issues that were at stake in the original Iranian lawsuits were never resolved whether the president could freeze assets in banks in foreign countries. That doesn't seem to bother Hoffman.

"Most of litigation is negotiation," he says. "Litigation, at its best, is the art of persuasion. Court should be the last resort, like war."

WORKING ON CUBAN CASES

When Hoffman graduated from Harvard Law School in 1960, he had no intention of becoming a lawyer who specialized in international investment and trade issues.

"I never took a course in international law," he says. "I didn't know what I wanted to do but, working for such a large law firm, we would rotate through the different departments. By default, I was assigned to the Cuban cases. When I retired 33 years later, I was still working on them."

Hoffman explains that, after the Cuban revolution in 1959, "all American assets there were nationalized," resulting in much litigation. Those cases are still going on and many of the assets are still frozen.

"That's the nature of these kinds of cases," he says. "They are long, protracted cases that go on for years." Cases involving China have gone on for more than 30 years, he points out, and Nazi cases for more than 50 years.

Hoffman was also involved in another key international finance case in 1985 with a company and man who are in the news today. Hoffman worked with Kenneth Lay, who resigned as CEO and chairman of Enron earlier this year amid charges of accounting irregularities and of misleading employees and shareholders. In 1985, Enron, then called Houston Natural Gas, had purchased an oil company in Peru. The new president of the country nationalized the company, that is, took it over on behalf of the government. They tried working things out with the Peruvian government, then filed suit against American International Group, an insurance company that had refused to pay Houston Natural Gas for its losses despite the fact that the company had political risk insurance with AIG. After a year-long trial, Hoffman ended up winning a $175 million settlement from AIG for Houston Natural Gas.

RUNNING AND HUNTING

In the 1980s, Hoffman, though still in his 50s, began looking toward retirement. He and his wife, Jean, decided they wanted to live in the country and started looking in New Hampshire and Vermont. John had gone deer-hunting in Vermont and both John and Jean had run in competitive races in New Hampshire. Their five children were grown but they still needed a big enough house for their frequent family get-togethers which now includes 12 grandchildren.

After several years of looking, they bought Seward Mountain Farm in 1988 and began living there on weekends while they fixed up the house, which is more than 200 years old. The farm has 700 acres of forest, four ponds, four barns, a sugar house, a five-room guest cottage, an observatory and even a restored one-room school house. It also has one horse, three dogs and a small herd of Scotch Highland cattle. The cattle all have names, including two heifers named for the Hoffman's mothers Effie and Mary.

The Hoffmans regularly open the farm to community groups like Monadnock Family Services, the Apple Hill Center for Chamber Music and area school children. A member of the Apple Hill Chamber is currently staying in the cottage and, last year, a Sullivan family that lost its home in a fire lived there for six months.

"After a while, Jean just started staying here all the time," says Hoffman. "We sold our house in Chappaqua (New York) and I got a small place where I stayed during the week. I planned to retire at 60 but one Columbus Day I was up here running around the pond and I just thought 'Why do I want to leave? It would cost me a certain amount of dollars to bail out earlier but, so what, money couldn't buy this.'"

That was 1992, and Hoffman took an even earlier retirement than he had planned and moved to Sullivan. Neither he nor Jean has regretted that decision.

They quickly became involved in the Congregational Church in Sullivan and in local issues. Jean was a selectman for the Town of Sullivan for three years, served on the Sullivan Conservation Commission and is active in Monadnock Family Services.

They felt very welcomed by the community. "I thought we'd be quietly tolerated," Hoffman says, "but people have been very friendly."

The friendliness was particularly appreciated when, only two years after they'd moved to Sullivan permanently, Jean was diagnosed with breast cancer.

"We got cards from people we'd never met," says Hoffman. "For the first time in our lives, we were part of a community."

On July 4, 1995, while she was undergoing chemotherapy, Jean ran her last competitive race and John was at her side. Both Hoffmans are long-time runners and have run in several marathons.

"We used to do a July 4th race every year," says Hoffman, "and the doctor gave her permission to run only if I would run with her.

"She had no hair and she wore this hat with a pigtail. Her T-shirt had a big syringe on it and said 'Blame it on chemo' on the front and 'I'm doing it because I can' on the back."

Already a close family, the Hoffmans and their five children became even closer when Jean got cancer, he says. Now, one of their daughters, who lives in Hartford, Conn., is fighting leukemia and Hoffman says the family is "even tighter." She has had two bone marrow transplants, both from her brother, but "they didn't take," says Hoffman. Three other daughters live in Boston; Madison, Conn.; and Germany. The Hoffman's son lives in Corning, New York.

Jean and John, married for 47 years, first met when they were just 19. John was a student at Princeton and Jean at Wellesley After their first date, on which they went golfing, Jean "swore she'd never see me again. I had a terrible temper," he says.

AN ACTIVE VOLUNTEER

Since moving to Sullivan, John, as well as Jean, has gotten very active in volunteer activities. He is involved in no less than 11 different organizations including the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests, Monadnock Family Services, the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation, the Monadnock United Way, the Apple Hill Center for Chamber Music, the Sullivan Planning Board and the Monadnock Conservancy.

As a result of his involvement with conservation issues and his long love of the outdoors, he has placed Seward Mountain Farm under conservation easements with the New Hampshire Forest Society, which means that the land can never be developed.

"All these things just keep popping out of the toaster," he says. "I thought I was going to read when I retired, but I don't have time. But, if I really were retired, I don't know how happy I'd be."

In the last few years, Hoffman has become particularly interested in the governance and management of non-profit organizations. "I didn't realize how vibrant this sector of the economy is," he says, "and how important it is. Yet, though non-profit organizations are peopled with people with good intentions, they're often not terribly well organized."

Hoffman hopes to help change that through an organization called Giving Monadnock. A project of the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation, its goal is to raise the level of charitable giving in New Hampshire though education and training for the leaders of non-profit organizations.

"New Hampshire has one of the lowest levels of giving in the country," he says, "although it has a relatively high income level. We're trying to train better fishermen rather than train the fish to jump out of the water. The more effective these non-profit organizations are, the better they will be able to raise money."

His new life is not entirely volunteer work, however. He and Jean are avid travelers they have traveled to Southeast Asia, Spain, Australia, New Zealand, the Caribbean and more, often combining the travels with outdoor activities like hiking or scuba diving or mountain climbing.

On January 3, the Hoffmans will embark on a three-month Africa trip sponsored by the Harvard Alumni Association; the trip was originally scheduled last year but was cancelled after 9-11.

Hoffman also has plans to get back into his observatory and he and Jean plan to take up tennis again. He is now planning to build a tennis court on his property.

In addition to his myriad volunteer and other activities, Hoffman has undertaken a long-held retirement goal. Three years ago, at the age of 65, he began taking piano lessons. He now studies with Eric Stumacher, executive and artistic director of the Apple Hill Center. He calls it his "anti-Alzheimer's pill."

It seems to be working. "I feel very young," says Hoffman, "like a kid."

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