Amos J. Hochstein

Amos Hochstein is a former Washington lobbyist. In January 2007, Hochstein became Policy Director for Sen. Christopher Dodd's (D-Conn.) campaign for the U.S. presidency.

Previous appointments

 * Until Jan. 2007: Executive Vice President at Cassidy & Associates.
 * Senior Policy Advisor to the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on International Relations.
 * Member of the professional staff for the House Subcommittee on International Economic Policy and Trade.
 * Legislative Assistant to Rep. Sam Gejdenson (D-Conn.)
 * Worked at Bankers Trust, Inc. (now part of Deutsche Bank)
 * Consultant at Lapidot PR.

Heads the Equatorial Guinea account at Cassidy
Before joining Dodd's campaign team, Hochstein was the lead lobbyist for the account of Equatorial Guinea at Cassidy and Associates. In an April 2006 interview with the Washington Post, Hochstein was effusive about the regime of President Teodoro Obiang:


 * "I don't know where The Post got those numbers [about malnutrition in Equatorial Guinea]. I've seen them on the opposition's Web site, but never anywhere else... [Obiang has] convinced me of his deep care for his people. And I've seen the changes. I know that he sent 120 Equato-Guinean nurses to Israel for training. I've seen the kids going to new schools in their blue pants and white shirts."

The malnutrition figures that Hochstein challenged had been published in a Post editorial a few days beforehand. The editorial did not cite its sources.

Training nurses in Israel
The training program for nurses referred to by Hochstein was announced in a July 2005 press release, on the guinea-equatorial.com website:


 * "The government of Equatorial Guinea announced today that it was beginning a major new health care capacity-building program in conjunction with Tel Aviv's Shiba Hospital, Israel's largest hospital center, to train 120 Equato-Guinean nurses and create a domestic training capability... The entire program is being funded by the government of Equatorial Guinea."

"Shiba" is a misprint: the training arrangement was actually with Sheba Hospital. The first group of nurses graduated in February 2006. According to a guinea-equatorial.com press release,


 * "Ms. Yardena Ovadia, the honorary consul of Equatorial Guinea in Israel, who was second guest of honor in the graduation ceremony, said that the end of this course is the beginning of fulfilling the vision of the President of Equatorial Guinea, His Excellency Teodoro Obiang Nguema, to bring the best, state of the art, western medicine to the benefit of the citizens of the country."

In December 2006, Haaretz reported that a retired gynecologist, Professor Yardena Ovadia, had been among a number of senior gynecologists at Beilinson Hospital in Petah Tikva who had admitted falsifying experimental data. It is not known if this is the same individual as the Equato-Guinean honorary consul.

Related SourceWatch/Congresspedia resources

 * Cassidy and Associates
 * Sen. Christopher John Dodd
 * U.S. presidential election, 2008