In April 1977, the conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly was about to be honored by the Women’s National Republican Club at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in Manhattan when she was hit by a well-aimed apple pie.

“A group called the Emma Goldman Brigade claimed responsibility,” The New York Times reported. It went on:

“A woman identifying herself as Coca Crystal, who telephoned The New York Times, said the group was anarchist, had five members and had had the pie thrown by Aron Kay, who she said was a professional pie-thrower who previously had hit Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan and E. Howard Hunt, the convicted Watergate burglar.”

The caller’s name might not have been familiar to the Times reporter, but to New Yorkers south of 14th Street, Coca Crystal was a countercultural celebrity, a Holly Golightly for the Aquarian age.

A onetime fixture at the alternative newspaper The East Village Other and a Yippie provocateur, Ms. Crystal, with members of the militantly feminist Emma Goldman Brigade (named after one of America’s most storied anarchists), also infiltrated the Waldorf to disrupt a Republican luncheon honoring Pat Nixon, the wife of President Richard M. Nixon. On cue, two of Ms. Crystal’s associates released white lab rats that had been concealed in their handbags, touching off pandemonium.