The staff at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico isstressed out by investigations into security breaches.
The lab said about 35 employees who work in the secret X-4Division have been put on paid leave this week to recover.
Officials did not identify those individuals placed on leave.
X-4, which employs about 300 people, is the unit that works on thedesign, assessment and maintenance of the primary components ofthermonuclear weapons.
The primary component is the nuclear fission, or primer, part ofthe warhead that initiates the explosion and then triggers the morepowerful secondary, or nuclear fusion, detonation.
"The official reason is for rest and recuperation," lab spokesmanJim Danneskiold said. "That's the limit of what I can say."
Pressed to explain why these employees need rest, Danneskiold saidthat "the attention focused on these employees due to the computerhard drive incident has had an impact on their work."
He said he could provide no further details, but said the FBIinvestigation into the temporarily lost hard drives is continuing.
The missing hard drives were a blow to the lab and EnergySecretary Bill Richardson. A few days after the drives were reportedmissing, officials discovered them in a vault in the X-Division ofthe lab that had been previously searched.
The portable drives contained information about disarming U.S. andsome foreign nuclear weapons and were used by members of the specialteam called to deal with nuclear weapon emergencies or terroristincidents.
Danneskiold said the X-4 group employees are scheduled to returnto work on Monday.
Danneskiold said that five of six previously suspended labofficials, who were placed on paid leave in connection with the harddrive inquiry, are back at work.
The six, who were not identified by the lab, were in the chain ofcommand-from lab director John Browne down to the X Division-thatfailed to inform supervisors and the Energy Department that the harddrives were missing for weeks.
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