Back in the 1980s, Donald Trump was best known for real estate. But, apparently, even back then he had political aspirations, as related by a Nobel Peace Prize winner. Apparently Trump felt he was the only man who could negotiate a nuclear disarmament deal with Soviet Russia.

This comes from Bernard Lown, the man who invented the defibrillator and who worked tirelessly with Soviet doctors to campaign for nuclear disarmament. At the time, as any ’80s kid can tell you, most Russians and Americans were convinced we were one luftballon away from nuclear winter. Lown relates to the Hollywood Reporter that he was contacted by Trump, who was on a mission of peace, albeit one with a rather optimistic view of geopolitics:

“He said to me, ‘I hear you met with Gorbachev, and you had a long interview with him, and you’re a doctor, so you have a good assessment of who he is,'” Lown recalls. “So I asked, ‘Why would you want to know?’ And he responded, ‘I intend to call my good friend Ronnie,’ meaning Reagan, ‘to make me a plenipotentiary ambassador for the United States with Gorbachev.’ Those are the words he used. And he said he would go to Moscow and he’d sit down with Gorbachev, and then he took his thumb and he hit the desk and he said, ‘And within one hour the Cold War would be over!’ I sat there dumbfounded. ‘Who is this self-inflated individual? Is he sane or what?'”

In the end, nuclear disarmament didn’t happen, for a host of reasons ranging from American military spending to Gorbachev’s political struggles as he tried to make the Soviet Union face the reality its economy was falling apart. That said, partial disarmament was achieved with the INF Treaty, which saw the US and Russia take apart its intermediate and short-range nuclear weapons. That said, Trump has changed his tune, now that he’s the one with the button: The Trump administration walked away from a UN treaty banning nuclear weapons.

(via The Hollywood Reporter)