The disgraceful prosecution of Wen Ho Lee has come crashing down in a plea-bargan settlement in which the U.S. government admitted in effect that it had no case against the former Los Alamos nuclear scientist. The man once accused of being the most dangerous atomic spy since Julius and Ethel Rosenberg now looks more like Alfred Dreyfus, the French Jew finally vindicated a century ago after imprisonment on false charges of treason.

Lee’s only punishment on his plea of guilty to one of 59 charges of mishandling classified nuclear data was a sentence of the time he already served – 278 days in near-solitary confinement, shackled hand and foot most of the time. The government’s agreement to release him shows how flimsy was the FBI’s claim that he had to be held without bail for fear he would turn over the “crown jewels” of America’s nuclear secrets to the Chinese.

The case began to crumble last month when a senior FBI witness admitted that he had misled the federal court by testifying falsely that Lee had deceived a colleague by saying that he wanted to borrow a computer to download a resume and that he had explained away correspondence with Chinese scientists by saying that they merely exchanged Christmas cards. Transcripts of the investigation showed that Lee never mentioned a resume and that he made a full report of his correspondence with the Chinese scientists.

Government lawyers tried to save face by boasting that they had at least obtained conviction on one felony – the single charge of mishandling files to which Lee had pled guilty – and Lee’s promise of cooperation in tracing some missing tapes. But the outcome proves that the value of the supposed nuclear secrets had been exaggerated. And it suggests that Asian-American groups were right in suspecting that the case was an example of racial profiling.

Actually, the suspicion that Lee might have spied for China was absurd on its face. He is a Taiwan-born American citizen who happens to be an outspoken opponent of the communist government on the mainland.

The case may not be over just yet. Lee still has a civil suit pending against the Energy Department, charging that it violated his rights to privacy by publicly releasing incriminating evidence against him in an early stage of the investigation.

A small group of investigative newspaper reorters, working hand in glove with paranoid and possibly racist bureaucrats and overzealous prosecutors created the case that now has collapsed. Heads should roll for a needless investigation, shameless prosecution and cruel nine-month imprisonment.