WASHINGTON — A federal judge ruled yesterday that the nation’s top cigarette makers violated racketeering laws, deceiving the public for years about the health hazards of smoking, but said she could not order them to pay the billions of dollars that the government had sought.

U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler did order the companies to publish in newspapers and on their Web sites “corrective statements” on the adverse health effects and addictiveness of smoking and nicotine.

She also ordered tobacco companies to stop labeling cigarettes as “low tar,” “light,” “ultra light,” or “mild,” since such cigarettes have been found to be no safer than others because of how people smoke them.

In her ruling, the judge said, “Over the course of more than 50 years, defendants lied, misrepresented, and deceived the American public, including smokers and the young people they avidly sought as ‘replacement smokers,’ about the devastating health effects of smoking and environmental tobacco smoke [second-hand smoke].”

Judge Kessler said adoption of a national stop-smoking program, as sought by the government, “would unquestionably serve the public interest” but that she was barred by an appeals court ruling that said remedies must be forward-looking and not penalties for past actions.

The government had asked the judge to make the companies pay $10 billion for smoking cessation programs, though the Justice Department’s own expert said $130 billion was needed.

That reduction in recommended remedies led to accusations that an associate attorney general appointed by President Bush, Robert McCallum, had tried to weaken the case. However, an internal Justice Department investigation cleared him of wrongdoing, saying he was supporting a figure that he thought could be sustained on appeal. Mr. McCallum currently serves as the American ambassador to Australia.

Judge Kessler’s decision came nearly a decade after the states reached legal settlements with the industry worth $246 billion and aimed at recovering health-care costs. Those settlements imposed some restrictions on the industry, such as banning ads on billboards and public transportation.

In the federal case, tobacco companies had denied committing fraud and had said changes in how cigarettes are sold now make it impossible for them to act fraudulently in the future.