WENDELL BAILEY'S PROBE IS OVER; TIME TO PLAN FUTURE

Where do I go to get my reputation back? -- The anguished cry of former Labor Secretary Ray Donovan, acquitted in 1986 of bribery and extortion charges after a lengthy trial.

A longtime Missouri public servant has had occasion recently to reflect on Ray Donovan's haunting words. Former Missouri State Treasurer Wendell Bailey received some welcome news recently when federal prosecutors announced an end to the investigation, begun nearly two years ago, whose entire work product consisted of one indictment that a judge promptly dismissed. Stephen Hill, a former Democratic Party campaign worker and now the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Missouri, persuaded a grand jury to indict Bailey on two counts of public corruption back in May 1994.

Bailey, an auto dealer whose colorful and irrepressible style made him popular with colleagues on both sides of the aisle, began public service on the city council in his hometown of Willow Springs before winning a seat in the Missouri House of Representatives in 1972. In 1980 he was elected to Congress from the old 8th District, where he served one term before being gerrymandered out of his district by a highly partisan and divided federal court panel. In 1984 he won the first of two terms as state treasurer before finishing third in the bitterly divisive 1992 GOP gubernatorial primary.

Most citizens who have spent this much time in public life over a generation would have amassed little private wealth outside their public salaries, and so it was with Wendell Bailey. How terrifying it must be for a private citizen of decidedly limited means to confront the federal prosecutors and the FBI, with their squads of investigators and their unlimited budgets. This was the lopsided situation faced by Wendell Bailey over the last 18 months, as the indictment cost him his job with a respected Arkansas money management and investment firm, together with tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees. Friends across the state who know of Bailey's integrity rallied to his defense with contributions and moral support. Leaders of both parties acknowledged that the indictment basically stunk.

In an investigation that had all the hallmarks of a half-baked and even politically motivated effort, Wendell Bailey, like former Gov. Warren Hearnes before him, was persecuted unjustly. At Bailey's age of 55, it is quite possible that Missourians haven't heard the last of this public servant, always before known for energy, integrity, humor and spunk. And so, with a clean letter from the U.S. attorney, he is known again.