The answer to X (the person) is David John Moore Cornwell who wrote under the pseudonym John le Carre (I couldn't figure out how to add the accent using this text editor, sorry). The word Y is 'mole'.
le Carre's reader referred him to the following passage of Francis Bacon's 'Historie of the Reigne of King Henry the Seventh' published in 1641:
'As for his secret Spialls, which he did imploy both at home and abroad, by them to discover what Practices and Conspiracies were against him, surely his Case required it: Hee had such Moles perpectually working and casting to undermine him.'
le Carre writes about the 'mole' origin in his foreword to 'Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy'.
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