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WASHINGTON, June 13 — The decision by a special prosecutor not to bring charges against Karl Rove in the C.I.A. leak case followed months of intense behind-the-scenes maneuvering between the prosecutor, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, and Mr. Rove’s lawyer, lawyers in the case said.

The move, made public early Tuesday by Mr. Rove’s lawyer, Robert D. Luskin, brought a surprise ending to the investigation of Mr. Rove, President Bush’s senior adviser. At one point last fall, Mr. Rove seemed close to facing perjury charges over lapses in his early testimony about a conversation with a Time magazine reporter.

Mr. Fitzgerald’s decision left I. Lewis Libby Jr., the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, alone among current and former White House officials still facing legal jeopardy in the three-year-old leak case. Mr. Fitzgerald announced in a letter to Mr. Luskin on Monday that he would not indict Mr. Rove, who had testified on five occasions to a federal grand jury about his involvement in the disclosure of an intelligence officer’s identity.

After months in which the case has been a major distraction to the White House, the decision frees Mr. Rove in his role as Mr. Bush’s top strategist during midterm elections this year. Mr. Luskin declined to address the legal issues surrounding the case but said, “We believe that the special counsel’s decision should put an end to the baseless speculation about Mr. Rove’s conduct.”

A spokesman for Mr. Rove’s legal team, Mark Corallo, said that Mr. Rove had made no deals to cooperate with the prosecution in any way, and that the decision was based purely on Mr. Fitzgerald’s findings. A spokesman for Mr. Fitzgerald, Randall Samborn, had no comment.

Mr. Fitzgerald’s decision is not expected to affect the legal case against Mr. Libby, who is charged with perjury and obstruction of justice. But it does free Mr. Fitzgerald to focus exclusively on preparations for that trial, which is scheduled to begin in January and could still embarrass the White House.

In a series of court filings in that case, Mr. Fitzgerald has indicated he may call Mr. Cheney as a witness, an unsettling prospect that could expose the vice president to the uncertainties of being questioned in a criminal trial. The decision to decline to prosecute Mr. Rove effectively ends the active investigative phase of Mr. Fitzgerald’s inquiry; Mr. Rove was the only person known to remain under scrutiny.

That leaves some important unanswered questions. Among them is who in the government first told the columnist Robert D. Novak about the C.I.A. officer at the heart of the case in the days before his July 14, 2003, column in which he disclosed the identity of the officer, Valerie Wilson.

Mr. Fitzgerald has been investigating whether the White House leaked Ms. Wilson’s name to discredit an Op-Ed article in The New York Times written by her husband, Joseph C. Wilson IV, in which he said there was no basis for the administration’s claims that Iraq had tried to buy nuclear fuel in Africa. A prosecution brief in the case said that a copy of the article annotated by Mr. Cheney showed that the vice president and Mr. Libby had been acutely focused on Mr. Wilson’s criticism.

White House officials were careful Tuesday not to celebrate too joyously over the news for Mr. Rove. But they were clearly buoyed by what they called the closing of one uncomfortable chapter in the leak case.

Speaking on Air Force One on his way back from Baghdad, Iraq, Mr. Bush told reporters: “It’s a chapter that has ended. Fitzgerald is a very thorough person. I think he’s conducted his investigation in a dignified way. And he’s ended his investigation.”

But he cautioned: “There’s still a trial to be had. And those of us involved in the White House are going to be very mindful of not commenting on this issue.”

Mr. Fitzgerald’s decision not to prosecute Mr. Rove came after months of private discussions between him and Mr. Luskin, beginning last fall, even before Mr. Libby was indicted. While in public Mr. Rove revealed little concern, lawyers in the case said Mr. Luskin had waged a fierce battle to stave off the prosecution. The lawyers in the case and associates of Mr. Rove would discuss confidential issues only after being assured anonymity.

The lawyers said Mr. Fitzgerald seemed at times to be close to bringing charges against Mr. Rove over his failure to volunteer early in the inquiry a conversation he had had about Ms. Wilson with a Time magazine reporter, Matthew Cooper.

Mr. Rove had testified that he had initially forgotten about that conversation, and that his memory had been jogged only after his lawyers found an e-mail message referring to a conversation with Mr. Cooper, sent from Mr. Rove to Stephen J. Hadley, then the deputy national security adviser and now the chief security adviser. Mr. Rove had argued that it would have been legal suicide to lie knowingly to a grand jury about a conversation with a reporter.

That argument seems to have been crucial in avoiding an indictment. Mr. Fitzgerald, lawyers in the case said, believed at least initially that Mr. Rove’s effort to find the e-mail message meant that he must have known of its existence earlier. But Mr. Luskin offered an alternative account, at one point switching from his role as a lawyer, offering himself as a witness.

Last fall, Mr. Luskin gave a sworn deposition to Mr. Fitzgerald, saying he had been told by Viveca Novak, a friend at Time magazine who is not related to Mr. Novak, that Mr. Rove might have talked to Mr. Cooper. That gave Mr. Luskin a reason to search for any record of such a conversation.

Mr. Rove was said by associates to be ebullient on Tuesday. He declined to comment, but the White House tipped photographers that he would be walking from the White House to the Old Executive Office Building, providing imagery of Mr. Rove, all smiles.

The leak investigation, several associates said, had been a heavy burden for Mr. Rove and his wife and son, whose home had frequently been visited by reporters and cameramen. Officials said Mr. Rove had stayed focused on his work throughout, but he was also said to have appeared less jovial and less inclined to engage in his usual practical jokes.

Associates said Mr. Rove seemed to loosen up in recent weeks, apparently as he and his lawyer had grown more confident that no indictment would come, and even as liberal bloggers and other commentators had predicted an imminent indictment, most recently in May, based on a report on Truthout.org.

Truthout has stood by that report, which said Mr. Rove was under a secret indictment. In a posting Tuesday it suggested that Mr. Rove was cooperating with the prosecution, which, it noted, had not commented publicly on Mr. Rove’s legal status.

In a statement, a lawyer for the Wilsons, Christopher Wolf, indicated that the couple was considering taking civil action against Mr. Rove. “The day still may come when Mr. Rove and others are called to account in a court of law for their attacks on the Wilsons,” Mr. Wolf said.

Tom Rath, a Republican leader in New Hampshire, said he was relieved Mr. Rove could concentrate on the midterm elections without the taint of scandal.

“It was like being on the disabled list; you see him in a uniform every day but you can’t have him on the mound,” Mr. Rath said of Mr. Rove’s previous legal limbo. “Now he’s back on the mound.”