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No Respect. The Ripon Society, a group of Republican liberals, blames the Administration's "floundering" largely on SBA Administrator Hilary J. Sandoval Jr., an El Paso businessman appointed by Nixon to replace Democrat Howard Samuels, a far more aggressive leader. The society called for Sandoval's dismissal because "he no longer commands the respect of the black and white communities with whom he has to deal." SBA officials around the nation complain that they get no guidance from Washington. Walt McMurtry, executive director of Detroit's Inner-City Black Industrial Forum, voices a common complaint: "Sandoval just does not have a program. He does not know what he wants to do."
Other observers are more sympathetic to Sandoval, believing that his efforts are withering in the absence of any forceful leadership from the White House.
Commerce Secretary Maurice Stens insists that Nixon is "totally committed" to the concept of black capitalism. In the absence of concrete results, though, such rhetoric is not enough to regenerate the enthusiasm that the idea created during the campaign.
What is needed, say critics, is personal leadership by the President to straighten out the SBA, coordinate the tangle of Government programs and enroll the assistance of bankers and other private businessmen. The businessmen seem eager, if only given direction from Washington, to provide markets and managerial help. Indeed, so successful is the National Alliance of Businessmen, which was founded during the Johnson Administration to find jobs for the hard-core unemployed, that Nixon might consider starting a National Alliance of Enterprise through which experienced businessmen could coordinate public and private efforts to get black capitalism going.