Published: Oct. 14, 2020, 11:37 a.m.
Born on January 30, 1940, Harry Targ holds both a B.S. and an M.A. degree from the University of Illinois, as well as a Ph.D. from Northwestern University. He is a longtime professor of political science and international relations at Purdue University, where he also serves as director of the school’s Peace Studies program. Moreover, Targ is a member of the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism (CCDS), the Northwest Central Labor Council (AFL-CIO), and the Lafayette Area Peace Coalition. He co-founded the local Lafayette chapter of the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES), an organization created by Cuban intelligence to lend support to the Communist guerrilla movement in El Salvador during the 1980s. And in the 1990s, Targ was a co-editor of the now-defunct publication Marxism Today: Essays on Capitalism, Socialism, and Strategies for Social Change. In the early 2000s, Targ’s Peace Studies program included a course titled “Experiencing Cuba,” co-taught by Professor Targ himself, where students were given an opportunity to tour Fidel Castro’s Communist state. Since 2008, Targ has disseminated his political views via his Internet blog, Diary of a Heartland Radical.